Wrench in the Works
by Yellow Mask
Summary: AU from 84 onwards. When Father orders the new Pride to kidnap Winry, they find she may be far more trouble than they ever expected. EdWin, some PridexWin.
1. Before The Fall

**Wrench in the Works**

**By Yellow Mask**

**Spoilers:** Up to 84 is fair game.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own FMA.

**Chapter 1**

**Before The Fall**

Father sighed heavily, eyeing the small flask of writhing, concentrated darkness. Pride's physical shell had been completely destroyed, but fortunately – unlike the other homunculi – Pride's physical shell wasn't linked to the survival of his essence.

Certainly, the Pride he forged from this would be a different Pride than its precedent...but that was to be expected. And not necessarily a disadvantage, Father reminded himself; after all, all things needed to evolve with time.

But he needed another human...or at least, the components of a vaguely human body. But who could he send on such an errand? Lust had perished, Envy's and Wrath's fates were still unknown, Greed had abandoned him, Gluttony and Sloth could not be trusted with such a task...so what could he do?

A memory niggled at his mind, a half-formed concept, the idea that maybe he didn't need someone to fetch a human for him...maybe he could find those components himself...

He dipped into the gate – the action so routine now it was almost effortless – but he did not push the limits as he had done so often before. He did not seek beyond. Rather, he sought what was in front of it, the debris of human folly washed up on the gate's unforgiving shore.

It was not really a surprise when he found Alphonse Elric's body, and Edward Elric's limbs. The gate was based upon connection, and he possessed a perfect copy of the body that had fathered them.

He considered using the younger's body, but dismissed the idea immediately. While he had created homunculi from complete human bodies before, he had never done so while the soul was elsewhere. While it was a small chance, there was a distinct possibility that the connection between the soul and the body would mean Alphonse Elric could somehow be aware of what his new homunculus was doing.

It was a small chance, but Father did not want to take it, nor did he want to use a body in such obviously poor condition.

But the limbs...they had potential. If they were used as the core, the template, so to speak, alchemy built around them...yes, they certainly had potential. They were only part of a body, and so would not have as strong a connection to Edward, potentially leaving his homunculus uncorrupted.

And if this proved viable, it would provide with another source to mine – using the body parts the Gate discarded to create more homunculi.

-xxx-

Winry was tinkering with one of the many automail limbs in the basement, more for something to do with her hands than out of any real desire to improve the design. She had several ideas for a better shock-absorbing knee, but the supplies Pinako had ordered for her were still at least a week away from delivery. And it wasn't as though she could wander around town or anything; in fact, since Pinako had taken Den to the vet for her shots, she couldn't even turn on any lights save the one in the kitchen, the one that Pinako had left on for her in case she got hungry. After all, they couldn't have anyone suspecting that she was here – the basement was pretty much the only room in the house in which she had free reign, and that was only because it lacked windows of any kind.

She had paused for a moment to dwell on the drafts for the improvements she had scribbled in her book, and in the silence she heard the front door open.

Winry couldn't help the tension that suddenly rippled through her frame. Every time Pinako returned, before her grandmother called out to reassure her that it was she who had entered the house, she was always on tenterhooks. But she figured being wanted by most of the military and a few practically unkillable monsters into the bargain gave her the right to be paranoid.

Silence reigned for a few uncomfortable, heart-clenching moments, then the door to the basement creaked open. The blonde girl tensed as though struck with a whip, her mind frantically searching for a method of escape from the basement, or at least a way to hide...

Until she recognised the silhouette standing at the top of the stairs.

"Ed?" Winry gasped, her breath rushing from her lungs in surprise.

For a moment, she was frozen as her heart skipped happily in her chest. Then she was bounding up the stairs two at a time, fully intent on giving him a thorough verbal lashing. What was he thinking, wandering around where anyone could see him and report him to the military? She was going to give him a lesson in being sensible and cautious, no matter how pleased she was to see him.

But as she got closer to the figure at the top of the stairs, Winry's eyes adjusted, and she noticed several disturbing things.

The first was that the man who looked exactly like Ed had no automail. In fact, his right arm and left leg appeared to be the only normal-looking parts of his body, as the rest of the flesh she could see seemed to be covered in abstract crimson tattoos, swirling along his skin. He was also wearing an outfit she knew Ed probably wouldn't be caught dead in, an outfit that was very similar to the one she'd seen worn by that creature that Doctor Marcoh had fought...Envy?

Winry's brain processed this information in the space of a breath and came up with one conclusion.

_'Not Ed. Not Ed! NOT ED! Get out of here!'_

Unfortunately, Winry knew there was no way out of the basement, and this being was blocking the doorway. So the mechanic took the only option available to her.

She put on an extra burst of speed and twisted so her shoulder smashed into the look-alike's chest, trying to force him out of the way so she could charge past.

Her shoulder went numb the instant she collided, and the impact reverberated painfully through her arm and chest. Ed's doppelganger lurched to the side with a shouted curse, but Winry had no time to take advantage of the sudden opening as his arm shot out – too fast for her to evade – and yanked her to him.

Winry's back hit his chest, the limb that had seized her pinning her arms to her sides as a hand clamped itself over her mouth.

"That was pretty rude," her captor commented, and Winry couldn't hold in a shudder of fear at hearing Ed's voice emerge from this creature's mouth. "Now, you'd be Winry, right?"

The mechanic refused to acknowledge the question – not that she could have said much with his hand gagging her.

"Never mind, I know you are. I'm Pride, by the way, and we'll be getting to know each other a lot better in the near future...at least until the Elrics start being obedient little dogs again or until Father decides you're no longer of use, whichever comes first."

Winry's heart – already galloping madly in her chest – lurched a little harder against her ribs at those words as her mind whirled. Pride...that meant he was a homunculus...he had said she was going to be used – _again_ – to manipulate Ed and Al...how had they found her?

Pride began to move, propelling her forwards, and Winry reacted instinctively, biting down on the palm that covered her mouth.

"_Shit!_" he bellowed, yanking his hand away.

His hold had loosened, enough for Winry to tear herself from his grasp and scramble away, spitting the blood from her mouth. But in an instant, in what had to be a violation of at least three laws of physics, the shadows cast across the floor by the light on the porch leapt at her like living things.

They lashed at her ankles, tripping her and sending her sprawling on the floor. Some part of her wondered if Pride had deliberately chosen a rather humiliating method of incapacitating her, instead of just using the shadows to seize her – at least when her mind got over the shock of realising that she'd been grabbed by shadows.

Her ankles were bound together, and her palms and knees throbbed where she'd scraped them open on the wooden floor, but Winry still struggled to turn; at least enough until she could glare at the homunculus approaching her, instinct urging her not to present her back to the enemy.

But the shadows looped over her back and pushed her down. Like polished stone sheathed in warm silk – soft and smooth, but with menacing strength behind it – they restrained her easily, so she had to settled for twisting her head and glaring at the homunculus over her shoulder.

"Touch me and I'll rip your eyes out," she snarled, trying to instil bravado into her voice as she kicked backwards, trying to free her legs from the shadows' grip.

Pride laughed, obviously not feeling threatened in the least, and Winry could hardly fault him. Not only was she pinned to the floor like a bug on a card, but from what she had seen, the loss of eyes or limbs by these creatures was only a momentary impairment.

"You know, you're already turning out to be a lot more trouble than was advertised," Pride sighed, bending down and grabbing a handful of her hair to yank her into a sitting position.

Winry grunted, her eyes watering as her scalp protested the abuse. The shadows moved with her, wrapping around her torso to secure her arms as Pride flung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Winry squirmed, flexing her knees, trying to kick him and force him to let her go, uncaring that if he released her she'd simply go tumbling to the floor. She opened her mouth to shriek – because if a homunculus was already dragging her off, letting people know she was here and in trouble couldn't put her in a worse situation – but one of the shadows zipped across her mouth, muffling the sound.

The blonde tried to bite it, but it had no effect – the shadow simply slipped between her teeth and flattened beneath the pressure, as though she was doing nothing more than biting cloth.

The world suddenly tilted – again – and Winry found herself deposited in a chair. The shadows stayed tightly adhered to her, but she was surprised when she saw Pride fumbling with the weird skort-looking thing he was wearing.

Even under the circumstances, some part of Winry was amused by the idea of what Ed would think of his double's fashion sense.

"You know, he said I might need this," the homunculus informed her, in a tone that suggested they were merely making polite conversation. "I admit I didn't believe him at first, but if I've got to get you all the way back home, I think I'd prefer you out for the duration."

Winry tried to call him a word she'd heard Pinako address uncooperative patients with. But what came out was a rather non-threatening mumble, so as Pride produced a syringe filled with clear liquid she tried to convey her message with a glare.

A glare that hopefully didn't clue him in to how terrified she was. Aside from the fear of being injected by someone inexperienced in syringes – what if he injected air into her veins? – there was the fear of what would happen to her once she was out. Not that she could do much to help herself in her current situation, but at least she was aware of what was happening to her. Could think, could plan, could maybe do something in the near future to escape...

Pride tapped the syringe and depressed the plunger a little, prompting some of the fluid to dribble from the end.

Okay, no air bubbles in her blood vessels – that was good, right? But what about dosage? What was he going to be injecting her with anyway? She'd never had to be heavily sedated before – she could have an allergic reaction...

But then there was a sharp prick as the needle punctured her skin and a burning sensation as the plunger was depressed. Lethargy swamped her surprisingly quickly, prompting her tired brain to wonder exactly what drug she'd been given.

She tried to resist, she really did, but it was like going completely without sleep then listening to the most boring speaker in the world in a dark, cosy room. Winry's eyelids dropped in spite of her efforts, and she was lost.

-xxx-

Winry woke slowly, blinking in an effort to clear her fuzzy vision. There was a moment of confusion as she stared at the ceiling, wondering why it looked so much like concrete...then she realised it _was_ concrete, and the blonde jerked upright.

She was on a bed, which was one of the few pieces of furniture in a room that appeared to be a hollowed-out concrete cube. The mechanic glanced around wildly for a few moments, feeling the beginnings of panic creeping in on her, until she noticed what she was sharing the room with, at which point beginnings of panic progressed to outright terror.

Between her and the door – and she was grateful to realise that there _was_ a door – were either some sort of mutants or members of animal species she had never known existed.

They looked like some bizarre cross between canines and reptiles. One had a dog-like head, but possessed long clawed feet and a long, thick tail more reminiscent of an oversized lizard than a dog. It didn't have scales or fur, but its flesh instead seemed to be covered with very fine hair, like thin velvet. It was lying on the floor, its mouth open and tongue lolling, and when Winry thought she caught a glimpse of blood on its teeth she hastily turned to its companion.

The other seemed to have more reptile in it, as it had scales and its head very strongly resembled a crocodile's (Winry made a mental note to give that one a wide berth).

She was pleased to realise that the corner they were in was opposite her bed. However, there was enough slack in the chains to let them reach the door easily, and she assumed they were acting as guard dogs.

Trying to ignore the monsters in the corner – and trying to avoid thinking about who would keep creatures like that as pets – Winry dragged her eyes around the rest of the room.

To her surprise, her accommodations were not as grim as she had first expected. The bed she was lying on seemed to be an ordinary bed; no thin mattress or ratty cover, but complete with pillow, sheets and two sets of blankets. There was a single chair and a small table a short distance away, with a large jug of water and a glass resting atop it.

A pale yellow curtain blocked her view of the far wall and Winry rose, tentatively glancing at the creatures near the door in case they rushed her as soon as she stepped off the bed, and moved to investigate.

Behind the curtain was a toilet, a small sink, and a showerhead carefully positioned over a drain with a towel draped over it. A shelf above the sink held a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, a bar of soap and even a bottle of shampoo. Suspicious, Winry approached the sink and gave the cold tap a twist.

Water rushed out, suggesting that the facilities were fully functional. Wondering why they had provided water if she seemed to have a constant supply, the blonde wet her fingertip and lapped the liquid from it.

It tasted vaguely metallic and almost mineral-like, like water that had been underground or had travelled through silt. As such Winry knew it might not be fit for drinking, and so turned the tap off quickly.

In spite of the situation, Winry found that she felt more confused than anything else. She wasn't exactly an expert on cells, but this seemed rather lavish for a kidnap victim.

Unless this wasn't a cell at all. Had she been rescued while she was out and hidden here until she recovered or something?

_'This is why it sucks to get knocked out,'_ she told herself. _'You have absolutely no idea what went on while you were unconscious.'_

Granted, it seemed a little strange that they'd put monsters in with her...but who knew how people thought?

Well, there was an easy way to find out – try the door.

With her eyes on...whatever those things were...Winry crept to the door. The creatures' heads rose from the floor as she approached, and she bit her lip, her weight on the balls of her feet, ready to run back to the bed if they took the slightest step in her direction.

"You don't take chances with something that has that many teeth," she muttered to herself, staring at the one with the crocodile head.

The mechanic placed her palm flat against the door, and pushed.

Nothing. It didn't move, didn't rock – the hinges didn't even squeak. She pulled her hand back and slapped it against the door, as though sheer will could make it move, but all she got in return was a stinging palm.

_'Okay, definitely locked...from the outside as there doesn't seem to be any locking mechanism on this side...so I'm probably a prisoner.'_

Depressed – but not really surprised – by this information, Winry kicked the door petulantly, cursing with the kind of words she'd learned from her grandmother. She knelt and placed her eye against the tiny crack between the door and the jamb, trying to determine how the door was secured and if it could be manipulated...

A growl sounded to her right.

Winry twisted around, to find the creature with the crocodile's head taking a menacing step forward, lips pulled back to reveal twin rows of long, slightly hooked teeth.

She took the most sensible option, and got out of the way, fast.

Back on the bed, she watched the...thing...settle down again with some bewilderment. It hadn't reacted when she first approached the door; was it trained to observe some kind of time limit – to allow people to be near the door for a certain amount of time before it attacked?

Despite her resentful glares at the once more docile creature, she couldn't help but notice that the other one hadn't actually moved. Was it sick?

Dismissing the thought with a shake of her head, she glanced around the room. Okay, if the door was out as an escape route, then she couldn't really see another way out. There were no windows, the walls were solid concrete, and the pipes from the bathroom area were rooted into reinforced metal that seemed to say 'try to pull this out – I dare you'.

Still, the blonde went to have a look at them anyway, just in case. She tapped and pried at the screws and edges, looking for some weakness she could exploit, but there was nothing. She would need a heavy-duty screwdriver to even begin to move them. And while she might be able to prise the drain grate up with a few days hard work, it was only about four inches in diameter – there was no way that could help her.

Another curse – just because she was feeling a little surly at this discovery. Winry had the feeling she should be feeling much more frightened than she actually was, but – while she was a little apprehensive, she wasn't as terrified as she thought people would usually be in this situation. Maybe it was because it was clear from what she remembered Pride saying that they had no intention to make her suffer – she was simply a means to an end, and the condition of this cell showed they had clearly decided it wouldn't benefit them in any way to make her miserable.

But then again, if they were planning to use her as a hostage against Ed and Al, she supposed they needed her in good condition.

And she couldn't let them do that.

_'There has to be some way out of here,'_ she coached herself. _'Come on Winry, use your brain – look around and think...'_

And it occurred to her, and she jerked her gaze upwards to behold a large grate in the ceiling. A vent – she knew she had to be getting air somehow! Sure, there were a few pipes laid over it, but there was enough space between them for her to get through.

The ceiling was quite a ways out of her reach, but Winry felt confident that if she turned the bed on its headboard, she could get within reach of it.

She was just about to try when she heard the scrape of metal on metal, and the door swung open. Winry spun around, automatically bringing her hands up in a defensive position.

She knew Pride looked like Ed, but it was still a shock when he walked through the door. Out of sight, she seemed to have forgotten just how eerily identical he looked – he looked _exactly_ like Ed...if he'd gotten drunk and had abstract red tattoos placed randomly over his body.

"You're finally awake," he smirked. "About time!"

He was carrying some cutlery and a plate with what appeared to be a simple meal of meat and vegetables. Winry eyed him suspiciously, shifting back against the bed as he set the food down on the table. She remained staring at him as he stepped away, even though the scent was making her mouth water and her stomach burble.

She wondered when she'd last eaten – three hours ago? A day ago?

"How long was I out?" she asked warily.

Pride shrugged. "A while."

It was clear that was all he was going to say on the subject. The blonde woman scowled.

"Aren't you hungry?" the homunculus inquired when she made no move towards the table.

"I'm not trusting anything you've brought me!" Winry snapped.

Pride rolled his eyes. "Relax, honey – it's not drugged."

"Don't call me honey!" Winry practically growled, more unnerved than she'd like to admit at the sound of a pet name coming from Ed's lips and in Ed's voice.

Pride laughed and turned away. "Calm down; if I put you off so much, I'll just leave and you can eat it in peace. Or stare at it, whatever you like."

The door shut with a heavy sound, and Winry heard against the scrape of metal on metal, and she suspected the door was locked with a bar across it. Rather simplistic, but it ensured she could do little to open it from inside.

She eyed the food, still hot and smelling deliciously appetising, and was very tempted. What harm could it do?

_'I need to keep up my strength if I'm going to get out of here,'_ she told herself as she sat down at the table. _'And if they want to drug me, me starving myself is not going to stop them – they'll just hold me down and inject me like Pride did in the first place.'_

With that in mind, Winry picked up her knife and fork and sampled the meal in front of her.

-xxx-

Pride sighed, idly kicking at one of the many chimeras that lined the corridors. The creature – part goat, part cat – skittered away from his foot with a defiant hiss. He didn't bother to pursue the matter, and simply continued walking.

He had no idea why Win-_the human's_ attitude bothered him, but it did. He hadn't really expected anything warmer from her – he'd kidnapped her, after all – but her obvious hostility had left him feeling strangely unsettled.

What was wrong with him? Why should her emotional state matter to him at all? His job was only to make sure she was kept healthy and comfortable, to be used against the Elrics when Father located them – what did he care if she was upset? As long as Win-_the human_ wasn't trying to commit suicide, it didn't infringe on his duties at all.

That was another thing! Why was he automatically thinking of the girl as 'Winry' instead of 'the human' or 'the mechanic' as Father mostly referred to her as? He hadn't even lain eyes on her until kidnapping her...so why did it feel so much more natural to call her by her name?

Maybe this was what Father had warned him about. He had said he'd created Pride from actual human limbs – the limbs of Edward Elric, to be precise, though Pride still wasn't exactly sure how he could have pulled that off – and so he could potentially be infected with human sentiments. It was only a theory, as Father had never constructed homunculi from human properties before, but he had still warned Pride to be on guard against it. Because of the connection between the body and the soul, it was possible he could develop some of the elder Elric's characteristics.

Of course, it was only speculation – and if it occurred Father planned to use the connection to manipulate the Elrics – but Pride believed he had just experienced the first such occurrence. It was apparent that Edward cared for Win-_the human_ as they were using her as a hostage against him, so it made sense Pride would feel some attachment to her, too. But as long as he kept it under control, everything would work out as it should, right?

Right?

-xxx-

_AN: Thanks to justcallmefaye for beta-ing this. And for my regular readers, I haven't forgotten Magic Doll – I've just got a bad case of writer's block, and I'm starting this story in the hopes that writing FMA will wake my 'muse up._

_And in case anyone's curious, this version of Pride was inspired by the game 'Bluebird's Illusion'._


	2. Escape

**Chapter 2**

**Escape**

Winry threaded her fingers through the grate, using it to balance herself as she teetered precariously on top of her tipped-over bed. She'd eaten her meal – at least, as much as she could force down while her gut churned with both anticipation and dread – and then promptly overturned her bed as she'd planned, used the metal slats beneath the mattress to climb onto the footboard, and then begun working on unscrewing the grate to the vents with the knife and fork that had been delivered with her meal.

At the moment, the knife was clenched between her teeth while she used the prongs of the fork as a makeshift screwdriver. Slowly, painfully, the screw was easing free. The small piece of metal wobbled in the air, and Winry finished the job with her bare fingers before pocketing the screw – no self-respecting automail mechanic would ever throw a screw away.

She started on the next one, all the while hoping no one would come in and catch her in the act. But if she was just a hostage – and with the basic necessities in the room with her – it seemed likely that the only visits she would be receiving were Pride's meal runs.

So, with any luck, it would be at least a few hours before anyone missed her.

The second screw gave way but the grate didn't list downwards, suggesting it lifted up rather than down. Winry went back to work, trying to ignore the way her arms were beginning to ache at being held above her head for so long.

When the last screw finally popped free and she pushed the grate upwards and sideways, Winry had to suppress a shout of triumph. She hooked her arms over the rim and scrambled up into the vent with some rather inelegant grunts of exertion.

To her surprise, she realised what she'd climbed into couldn't really be classed as a vent. It had a flat concrete floor, and there was a multitude of pipes and cables running through the place. She could have stood to her full height and easily had a foot or two between her the mess of piping above her.

In fact, it seemed almost like some kind of complex boiler room. Even just from a swift glance around, Winry could see that there was a multitude of other pathways branching off from the one she was in, and the bubble of optimism that had filled her when she first climbed in popped with such force she could practically hear it.

How on earth was she going to find her way out of here? In something like this, she could end up completely lost within minutes. She had no idea how she'd been brought into the cell or from which direction, and it wasn't as though the place was displaying exit signs.

And while she might not be missed for a while, eventually her captors would notice she was gone, and then she'd be scrambling around up here while being hunted by creatures who surely knew the place a lot better than she.

The blonde glanced into her cell again, wondering if she should risk kicking the bed back down. Initially, she dismissed that idea for fear the noise would bring someone running...but now she was seriously considering it.

Her original plan had been to climb into the vent and follow the air flow. Eventually, she'd come upon a fan which was bringing in air from the outside world, a fan which she could then dismantle and remove (granted, all she had was a knife and fork but Winry had told herself that she'd cross that bridge when she came to it), and then escape. And, since she had no idea where this place actually was, she'd figured she'd judge her surroundings and go from there.

Now...now she had to seriously consider the possibility she'd still be looking for a way out when her escape attempt was discovered. If they found the bed like that...they'd know she'd gone up. But if she could at least confuse them about how she'd gotten out, they'd split their force and she'd have a greater chance of sneaking past them.

Plus, the concrete walls and large, practically air-tight metal door ensured sound probably wouldn't travel very far. So Winry delivered a short, sharp blow to the footboard, causing the bed to list backwards and crash back into its original position. Winry winced at the sound, even as the creatures in the cell yelped.

The blankets and pillows were still crumpled in a heap on the floor, but she couldn't do anything about that. So Winry lowered the grate back into place, and wondered which direction she should go in.

The cell had been lit by a single bulb in the ceiling, but there was no such light source here. In fact, the faint glow from the grate was the only thing illuminating her surroundings. There was no obvious air current to follow, so she simply picked a direction and began creeping down it – it didn't seem like this part of...wherever she was being kept...was used frequently, but she wasn't about to take chances.

At first, she had thought that light was going to be a problem, but just as the light from her cell was beginning to fade, she spotted another source – there was another grate in the floor, obviously serving as ventilation for another room. Keeping it in mind that a light source usually meant the room was being used, Winry crept towards it, crouched down and leaned over it slightly.

The room below was empty, which was rather a surprise. Usually rooms had some sort of furniture in them or storage boxes at the very least, but the one below her seemed to be nothing more than empty space. So Winry shrugged mentally and moved on, refusing to take any pathways deviating from her current one – until she reached a dead end, she was going to do her best to avoid becoming hopelessly lost.

But eventually, she did reach a dead end, though not the one she'd been expecting. The pipes and cables around her suddenly curved and shot straight down, disappearing into a black hole in the floor. And while some part of Winry was tempted to climb down simply to continue following the pipes – they had to come out somewhere, after all – she knew that even if she could climb down there she certainly couldn't climb up again. So she went left instead, knocking out a grate that apparently wasn't screwed in and sliding through to another mess of pipes and cables that continued in the same direction, but without the downward drop.

Winry resumed her somewhat-stealthy shuffle along the pipes, but nearly leapt out of her skin when she heard voices. She had flattened herself against the pipes before she realised the voices were actually emitting from a grate just in front of her, and so she obviously wasn't in danger of being discovered just yet.

Curiosity piqued, Winry slunk closer and cautiously peered into the room below her.

Pride was standing there, conversing with a man who Winry assumed was Ed and Al's father at first glance, until she remembered their story about a man who looked exactly like Hohenheim but wasn't actually him, and went by the name of Father.

From what she remembered, he was also the boss of the homunculi and the brain behind all the evil things they'd ever done, and it was with that in mind that Winry began backing slowly away from the grate, not even hanging around to listen to their conversation. From what Ed and Al had told her about this guy, she wouldn't put it past him to have some kind of ability that made him capable of detecting her presence even if he didn't see, hear, or smell her.

So Winry went in the opposite direction as quickly as she could, feeling as though her level of anxiety had tripled. She swallowed a few times in an effort to coax moisture back into her suddenly dry throat.

Was that a growl behind her?

Winry jerked her head around, her eyes scanning the dimly-lit world around her, half-expecting to see glowing eyes as some monster rose from the darkness. But there was nothing, and she firmly told herself to stop being silly – a glimpse of Ed and Al's arch-enemy was no reason to completely lose her head and start imagining monsters creeping up on her.

Still, she couldn't help her frequent glances behind her as she turned down another pathway, following one of the broader pipes.

Which turned out to be a good decision, as a rather pungent smell hit her nose. Was there a sewer somewhere?

While finding a sewer was usually not cause for celebration, Winry beamed to herself. Sewers meant drains, which meant some connection to the outside world...and sewers always had manholes, and access to the outside in case they needed to be repaired. Now all she had to do was hope that the smell was actually coming from a sewer, and not a decaying rat stuck somewhere in the pipes.

She sniffed the air like a scent hound to try to determine the direction it was coming from, walking one way then the other to see if it got any stronger and wrinkling in her nose in distaste when the stench emitted particularly strongly from her right.

The blonde was just about to set off in that direction when another menacing rumble came from behind her. She turned around...

And this time there _was_ a set of glowing, reflective eyes. Four sets, to be exact.

Winry couldn't help the scream that ripped from her throat as she tore off down the strange corridor, heedless of direction as she dipped and swerved around corners, taking whatever path seemed most likely to throw them off her trail.

But the sounds behind her never abated – the clatter of hooves, the thud of heavy paws, the high barks and roars of animals pursuing their prey – and Winry was forced to grimly assume they were probably too close to shake. She didn't dare even glance behind her for fear they'd be on her at the slightest hesitation in her stride.

All her concentration went to focusing on what was ahead of her, and not tripping on the pipes and cables – if she went down, she knew she'd never have the chance to get up.

Her legs burned and her lungs ached, but adrenaline and sheer desperation lent her strength. She hurdled a pipe that obstructed her path, landing lightly on the other side...

And then the ground dissolved beneath her, the concrete under her feet parting like curtains and leaving her tumbling sickeningly through space.

The landing was bad one. Winry felt her left foot turn beneath her and her collapsing leg sent her tumbling down on her side, the hard stone smashing against her ribs and knocking the breath from her body. For a few crucial moments, she could do nothing but lie there, pain stabbing through her leg and ribs, chest heaving as she coughed and spluttered.

Eyes watering, her skin tingling and half-numb from the impact, she managed to drag herself to her knees and grasp the knife and fork in her pocket. They were hardly fearsome weapons, but they were better than nothing, and she brandished them at the two figures she could barely glimpse through her blurring vision.

She managed to draw several short, shallow breaths that eased the burning in her lungs a little, and as Winry blinked away the reflexive tears she finally realised who she was staring at; Father and Pride were standing in front of her, gazing down at her – Pride in obvious puzzlement, and Father simply in mere interest.

The mechanic became aware of just what a picture she must represent, on her knees, brandishing cutlery as her final line of defense.

"How'd she get out?" Pride asked, apparently directing his question to empty air. "I thought I locked that door."

Father glanced up at where she had emerged from, and to Winry's surprise – without any movement, any kind of gesture on his part – the ceiling slid back together, sealing away the glowing eyes of her former pursuers. She didn't pretend to be an expert on alchemy, but she was pretty sure that wasn't something normal alchemists could do.

"The fact the chimeras on the above level were alerted suggests she escaped through the vent," Father mused, before glancing back down at her. "I suppose we should have taken more precautions before housing a mechanic."

Winry fought the urge to quail beneath his stare and glared at him with the kind of fire she normally reserved for Ed when he returned with his automail in pieces.

"No matter, we will take them now – Pride, take her back to her cell."

Father turned away, and Winry automatically brandished her utensils at the approaching homunculus. However, it didn't really surprise her when she was disarmed with a flicker of shadow.

"Better luck next time, honey," Pride said, his tone condescending.

"Don't call me honey!" Winry spat.

"Yeah, yeah – come on, back to bed."

He lifted her in his arms like he was lifting a baby, and with about as much effort. Winry had been thinking of hitting him, but the impulse was lost in the waves of pain the radiated through her when Pride picked her up. Stinging aches were flaring up all over her body, especially on the side she'd fallen on, and Winry could tell she would have some very impressive bruises in a few hours.

Her ribs throbbed with each breath, but she couldn't tell if they were cracked or simply bruised. The shift in position had done her injured foot no favours, but Winry could tell that most of the pain seemed to be coming from her ankle. Sprained, perhaps?

It took less time than she would have thought to reach her cell. Apparently, in her wild dash from the...chimeras, as Father had called them...she must have doubled back somewhere along the way.

Pride deposited her on the bed, and Winry looked up at the vent above her just in time to see the ceiling shift, flowing over the vent like water, until it didn't look like one grate but a series of very small grates.

Father stood in the doorway, contemplating the ceiling with a slightly satisfied air.

"Is she badly injured?" he asked, and Winry presumed that inquiry had been brought on by her wince as Pride set her down.

"I think there's something wrong with her ribs, and her ankle's gone funny," Pride said, and Winry could have sworn he sounded almost worried.

_'You're just projecting,'_ she told herself. _'He looks and sounds like Ed, and Ed would be worried in his position – you're just projecting.'_

The blonde woman glanced down at her ankle, and immediately saw what Pride meant by 'gone funny' – she had obviously twisted it, and badly; her foot was on an angle no one but a very skilled ballerina could hold.

No wonder it hurt so much.

Father approached her, and Winry was unable to control the way she shrank back against the wall, survival instincts clamouring to get herself out of his way. He simply grabbed her arm to hold her still and touched his hand to her side.

The mechanic shivered, feeling as though a slight pulse had run through her body, and it was only when Father drew his hand away that she realised he had taken most of her pain with it. Her ankle still throbbed, but her ribs and side felt as though nothing had ever happened to them.

Had he healed her?

The man who could have been Hohenheim's identical twin stared at her for a moment, then turned and began to walk out of the cell.

"Hey, aren't you going to fix her foot, too?" Pride asked.

"No – it may serve as a deterrent to future escape attempts," he replied, before turning down the corridor and becoming lost to sight.

Winry was left gaping, unable to grasp the cold disinterest in that statement. That man was capable of fixing her up, yet he was going to let her languish with a badly twisted ankle with no more remorse than if he had hobbled a horse to stop it wandering off.

She was so stunned that she wasn't paying attention to what Pride was doing until a hand touched her injured ankle. Winry yelped and pulled it away from his grasp, eyeing him distrustfully.

"Look, I'm trying to help you here," the homunculus grumbled. "You know this sort of first-aid medicine stuff, right? What do I do?"

Some part of Winry wanted to spit in his face and scream at him...but her ankle really, really hurt. "First, you need to take off my boot."

Pride unlaced her shoe with much more tenderness than she would have expected, but hesitated when he was about to pull it off. "Won't this...hurt?"

Winry was in too much pain to dissemble. "Probably." The swelling alone would ensure that.

"Isn't that...bad?"

"Just do it – yank it off."

Pride obeyed, practically tearing the shoe off as Winry gritted her teeth and fisted her hands in the material of her pants. A strange sort of high-pitched whine emerged from her throat, but she was pleased she hadn't screamed.

Pride was staring at her swollen, purpling ankle and looking horrified.

"T-tear up the sheet," she managed to force out. "I need a bandage."

The homunculus did so, ripping the sheet on the floor into strips.

"My foot needs to be repositioned," Winry instructed, panting slightly with the effort of keeping herself calm and in control. "Twi-twist it back into place."

"No way!" Pride yelped.

"_You do it or I do it!_" Winry bellowed, not having the patience to deal with her captor's strange reluctance to hurt her. "You can't bandage it until it's back in the correct position!"

Pride swallowed, looking terrified, and his expression was such a mirror of Ed's when she'd told him she was going off with Scar that Winry had to look away.

"Okay," he said quietly, reaching for her foot.

"I might not be in much shape to give you instructions after this," Winry admitted. "So, when everything's back the way it's supposed to be, wrap from my toes to the middle of my leg, with most of the bandages around the ankle. And do it tightly."

Pride nodded, and Winry lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying not to anticipate what she knew was coming.

To his credit, Pride did it cleanly. One wrench and while Winry screamed she dimly registered the feeling of cloth being wrapped around her injury. But of course, the pressure on the swollen mass of tissue made the pain worse, and the mechanic was unable to do anything but hiss and whimper while she waited for the fire in her leg to subside.

Lost in her own private struggle, Winry didn't even register that Pride had finished bandaging her until she realised someone had wrapped her in their arms, and she was being rocked and soothed like a fussy child.

She breathed deeply for several seconds, trying to get the pain under control, trying to stop herself from simply closing her eyes and imagining she was hearing Ed's voice.

Though some spiteful part of her wanted to shove Pride off the bed and onto his ass, the rest of her was eager to grab whatever comfort was around, and it didn't help her resolve that this homunculus looked and sounded so much like Ed. She turned her face into his chest, sniffling, shocked and horrified to find herself on the verge of emotional tears.

She told herself it was simply a delayed reaction to...everything. It wasn't uncommon for her – Grandma had always said she was good in a crisis because she kept her head and waited until everything was over to collapse. It had been the same when she delivered that baby in Rush Valley.

"Why are you doing this?" It was only when Pride went stiff that Winry realised she'd said that aloud.

For his part, Pride was wondering the same thing. He was a homunculus – he didn't go around cuddling humans! What the hell was wrong with him?

What was worse, was that it felt...good...to do this for her. To help her, to comfort her. What _was_ wrong with him? What made her so different, so...fascinating?

She was a shade taller than average, pretty in that classical beauty kind of way, and he supposed automail mechanics as talented as she was were rare...but really, she wasn't all that out of the ordinary. Some pleasant packaging, yes, but still just a human.

He became aware Win-the _human_ was still waiting on his answer (and that he was still holding her), so he simply huffed and pulled away.

"We need you in good shape," he blustered. "After all, we may need you here for a while."

"To get Ed and Al to do...whatever you want them to do?" she snapped, managing to sound defiant in spite of the pain she was in.

"Exactly." He forced a smug grin to his face, trying not to show how much her agony was distressing him. "If we handed you over in less than stellar condition, it might be regarded as not keeping our word, you see?"

Winry scowled, her contempt obvious in her sarcasm. "And keeping your word is important to you? And my question was about that hug-thing, not the bandaging."

Pride glared, and slammed the door on his way out.

"That didn't answer my question," Winry commented to the empty room.

The blonde sighed, dismissing Pride's behaviour as bizarre homunculus mood swings, and tested her ankle. It ached like fury, and certainly wouldn't support her weight, but Pride's treatment had been competent – the tight bandages would restrict movement and hopefully control the swelling.

She limped over to the table and took a drink, then shook the blankets and pillows out and tossed them back on the bed. She glanced towards her companions in the cell, watching the one with the reptile head scuffle in the corner while the other just lay there, as it had done ever since she first saw it, its head lolling on the ground, its mouth open as it panted.

The spots of red on its teeth and tongue were most definitely blood, but as Winry glanced around it suddenly struck her how strange that was. There was no remnants of a meal around the chimeras, and the one with the crocodile head seemed to have no blood on it at all...so where had the blood come from?

Was it injured in some way?

Feeling a strange, reluctant kinship with another creature that had been left injured and alone in here, Winry limped cautiously closer, ready to leap away if it tried to attack her, but it seemed too exhausted to really do anything. The one with the crocodile head watched her with flat, reptilian eyes, but it didn't growl or charge, so the blonde risked kneeling beside the incapacitated chimera.

"Hey, little one," she crooned, in the voice she used to soothe Den after her automail leg had been reattached. "What's wrong with you? Aren't you feeling well?"

It blinked at her, its lips lifting, as though it were trying to snarl but hadn't the energy or the will.

"Well, you seem to be a girl," the blonde continued in the same low, soothing voice. "I mean, I don't know what indicates a reptile gender, but if we're going with dogs you look like a girl...and it's not as though you'll know the difference, so we'll say you're a girl."

The chimera's mouth was slightly open, and Winry risked ducking close for a moment to glance inside. She straightened up immediately, looking at her patient to see if she objected. When the creature didn't move, she repeated the movement, this time lingering to peer into the mouth.

There was something pale inside – it looked like a yellow-white sliver of bone. It had somehow become jammed diagonally in the chimeras mouth, one of the sharp ends sunk into the gum and the other wedged between two teeth.

Not at all enthusiastic at the prospect of reaching into a slavering monster's mouth, but reluctant to leave a living thing in such obvious pain (and in such a tender area), she cast about for something to hold the chimera's jaws open or, at the very least, something she could knock it on the head with to persuade it to release her.

The screws in her pocket obviously weren't going to do anything, but Winry was struck with inspiration upon spotting the plate still resting on the table. It was still half-full with cold food, and Winry was a little unsure how to deal with that – it wasn't as though she had a garbage bin nearby.

Deciding it the plate was just as functional if it had food on it, she slowly, painfully levered herself to her feet and hobbled to the table to retrieve it.

"If you bite me, I'm going to bash you on the head with this plate," she informed the chimera as she knelt down next to it once more.

The other chimera looked at her with interest as it scented food, and Winry began to wonder if this was such a good idea after all, but after sniffing the air ominously for a few moments it seemed to lose interest. Maybe it was like a reptile and didn't need to eat as often as mammals?

Winry let the plate rest on the ground as one hand worked on prising the chimera's jaws apart. "Easy girl, I'm going to help you – I'm going to get that out, and you'll feel much better..."

The chimera didn't make any sort of recognisable protest, which led Winry to wonder just how weak it was. It would have been difficult for the animal to eat in that state, and it was looking awfully thin. Initially she'd just assumed the protruding ribs and visible vertebrae were part of the freak-of-nature package, but now she was seriously considering the possibility that she was looking at a severely emaciated animal.

"Okay, now I'm just going to reach in here and try to twist this out..."

She was wary of moving the bone at all, embedded in the chimera's gum as it was, but there was no other way. As gently as she could, she twisted it free with the kind of dexterity automail engineering had taught her, withdrawing the bone and flinging it to the ground.

The chimera closed its mouth and a long, rather reptilian tongue emerged to lick its lips but it made no other move.

Considering how long it might have gone without food, Winry was feeling rather sympathetic and – determined not to have her patient die on her after she'd gone to so much trouble – scooped a handful of mashed potato from her plate and pressed it to the chimera's mouth. The tongue emerged again, tentatively sampling the food, before her fingers were cleared in a few weary swipes.

"Good girl," she crooned. "Want some more?"

Winry fed the chimera the remainder of her dinner, grinning a little. Though it seemed bizarre, helping it had cheered her up – probably because it was something positive she could do to take the focus off herself, rather than lying around whimpering in self-pity about how much her ankle hurt.

"Very good girl," the blonde whispered, stroking the chimera's ears. "Hey, if I give you some of my dinner every night, will you let me try to figure out how to open the door, hmmm?"

_'You're attempting to make a deal with an animal that doesn't understand a word you're saying,'_ muttered a sarcastic voice in the back of her mind, but Winry studiously ignored it.

She was tired, but doubted she could fall asleep with the way her ankle was throbbing. So she simply stayed where she was, scratching through the thin, velvet-like fur that covered the chimera's head.

"You know, if I closed my eyes, I could almost fool myself into believing I'm sitting at home, stroking my dog," she informed it. "You seem about half-dog...but what's your other half? Some kind of giant lizard?"

It blinked at her, and Winry was startled from her reverie by the sound of metal on metal that she had learned heralded the opening of the door. Struggling to her feet, she took her weight on her uninjured leg and faced the door as it swung aside to reveal Pride behind it, looking severely pissed off.

She tensed automatically, wondering what was about to happen – he looked angry enough to reduce her to a little red smear, so she was surprised when he simply shoved a small plastic packet into her hand.

"Painkillers," he snapped. "You'll need them."

With that, he stalked out again, muttering obscenities under her breath. Suspicious and confused, the mechanic glanced down at the packet, expecting some kind of trick...but the labels were for painkillers, and the package didn't appear to have been tampered with.

"And this whole thing is only getting stranger," she muttered.

-xxx-

_AN: Thanks to justcallmefaye for beta-ing this!_


	3. Pretty

**Chapter 3**

**Pretty**

Winry brushed her teeth and hair, and contemplated a shower before deciding against it – she didn't want to disturb the bandages on her ankle so soon. She took two of the pills, washed them down with a glass of water, then limped to the middle of the room and shut off the single lightbulb with a yank on the attached cord. She was plunged into complete and total darkness, and it was by vague memory that she staggered her way back to the bed.

It felt like admitting defeat to be sleeping in the enemy stronghold, but Winry told herself she was not giving in – she was simply gathering strength for another escape attempt.

The complete blackness was really kind of eerie. Even out in the backwoods of Risembool, there was starlight so you could at least see your hand in front of your face. But here, she couldn't even see her nose if she crossed her eyes.

It was quite creepy – she could be the only thing alive here, apart from the breathing of the chimeras...which in its own way, was even more unsettling. Lying in the dark hearing disembodied breathing was the stuff nightmares were made of.

Winry predicted difficulty in getting to sleep.

-xxx-

But Winry must have slept, because she was blinking awake in total darkness, disorientated and wondering how much time had passed. Her ankle was throbbing again – the painkillers had obviously worn off – but she felt rested, so she figured she might as well get up.

If she stayed here, this was really going to mess with her internal clock.

The blonde swung out of the bed and limped towards where she thought the light switch was, waving her arms blindly in hopes of hitting it. She felt the cord knock against her wrist, and groped in the nearly-solid blackness for a second before she wrapped her fingers around it and yanked.

The sudden wash of light made her eyes burn, and she blinked for long moments as she waited for them to adjust.

When they did, the first thing Winry did was check on her chimera patient. She was tempted to take another painkiller, but decided against it – Pride had looked so pissed off about giving them to her she wasn't sure when she'd get more, so it was probably best to ration them.

"Hey girl," she muttered, stroking the chimera's skin. There was no real visible difference between its condition yesterday and its condition today, but Winry supposed there wouldn't be – it would take more than the removal of the bone and one meal for the animal to recover.

"I need to call you something," she mused. "I mean, grumpy Croc-Head over there doesn't need any more sophisticated name than that, but I feel we've got a real relationship going...even if it's only because you're probably too exhausted and starving to bite me."

-xxx-

Pride scowled at the door in front of him, wondering why Father kept having him deliver the meals. Dammit, he'd told Father he thought Ed's emotions were starting to screw with his brain – why was the man intentionally sending him back to the very source of his confusion?

Unless Father wanted him to somehow conquer this...thing. But how could you control emotions? Humans seemed to be their utter slaves...but he was a homunculus, and he was better than them!

Wasn't he?

But he hadn't even realised he was cuddling Win-_the human_ until she'd pointed it out. If logic and rational thinking could be so completely overwhelmed like that, Pride could almost sympathise with the human race. What must it be like to constantly want to be in someone's presence, to feel driven to do things for them because you liked them?

Pride had a sinking feeling he was starting to find out.

He opened the door to find one of the more bizarre sights he'd seen in his lifetime. The mechanic was sitting on the floor, her wrapped ankle extended to one side...and a chimera's head in her lap.

It was that skinny one, the one Father suspected was sick and thus might have to be replaced soon, and Pride calmed a little knowing that it was probably allowing her to caress it was because it was too exhausted to put up a fight.

"Found a friend?" he grumped, setting down the bowl of porridge that would serve as her breakfast.

"Her name is Pretty," Winry corrected, standing slowly, with a wince of pain that Pride found difficult to watch.

"You're calling that thing Pretty?" he snorted, trying to use sarcasm to distract himself from her limping, shuffling gait.

"Well, I'm not about to call her ugly," Winry snapped, glaring at him as she settled into the chair.

Pride rolled his eyes and stalked out, seizing the carcasses he'd left outside the door and heaving them in, all but throwing them at the chimeras. The healthy one sprang upon its food immediately, ripping and tearing with such fervour that Pride began to worry it had been a bad idea to feed them and Win-_the human_ at the same time. Would she be put off her meal by the sight and sound of the chimera feeding?

Apparently not, because she was devouring her porridge with gusto. But automail engineers had to do surgery stuff as well, didn't they? So it made sense she'd have a strong stomach.

"What do you want?" she muttered between spoonfuls. "Creepy guy told you to cripple me some more or something?"

"You know that attitude doesn't exactly soften me towards you," the homunculus commented.

"I don't like people who drug and kidnap me – I'm irrational like that. And by the way, how long are you planning to keep me here? I have a shower, which is nice and all, but if you're planning to leave these as my only change of clothes it might become a problem."

"Give 'em a wash yourself if you're so worried about that," Pride grumbled. There was no real reason for him to remain, but he wanted to stay, and he was irritated at himself for wanting to stay. He was a homunculus – he was better than this!

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got – if Father was so eager to spawn him from human limbs, couldn't he have chosen some that didn't belong to a human who, by the feel of it, was head over heels for the mechanic? Why couldn't he have just chosen some random stranger who had never even met the Rockbell girl and who would feel absolutely nothing at being in her presence?

"You're not even that pretty!" he blurted at her, storming out and slamming the door behind him.

Winry was left staring after him, puzzling over how that related in any way to what they'd been discussing. And trying to suppress memories of Ed's similar, bizarre rejoinders when they had an argument – how did the fact that she wasn't cute relate to maintenance of his automail?

"Ah, who cares?" She muttered, half to her bowl of porridge and half to Pretty. "He may give me meals and everything, but he's a jerk."

She finished her breakfast swiftly, before slowly rising and limping over to Pretty, who was chewing feebly at...whatever it was she'd been given.

"You'll be all better soon, won't you?" the blonde mused. "Then you'll probably be back to growling at me again."

She felt a twinge of regret at the idea; that the only creature she could actually count as something approaching a companion would soon be willing to go for her jugular if she lingered at the door too long. She gave a wistful pat to the chimera's shoulder, rubbing the thin, velvety fur companionably before dragging herself over to the small bathroom section of her prison.

If the vent was out, and the door was out...well, she had other ideas.

-xxx-

Winry paused in her wrestling with the steel plate surrounding the pipe that led the toilet's contents away from the cell and presumably into some kind of sewer.

It had been about three days since she'd started on this plan (at least, she thought it was three days – she'd slept and risen three times, which was her best estimate of time) and it was showing depressingly little progress. Granted, all she had to work with was cutlery and the screws she'd obtained from the vent, but a stupidly optimistic part of her had been hoping that the steel plate would lever up, revealing a nicely-sized hole around the pipe that, after removing said plumbing, she could fit through easily. Apparently this was going to be one long, hard slog to get rid of the metal plate, then get rid of the pipe, then somehow squeeze through the hole and hopefully gain her freedom.

It was taking so long Winry wondered if she shouldn't just tip the bed up again and work on chipping away at the concrete blocking the vent – it would probably be faster. And Pride might be less likely to notice the damage as he never looked at the ceiling; lately he just shoved her meals at her and walked out, muttering under his breath. But of course, working on the ceiling would require her to be able to balance on the bed again, a prospect that didn't look bright with a twisted ankle.

_'Face it, it's not as though you have better options,'_ she told herself. _'It's either long, mind-numbing __work to clear an exit, or try the door and get your face bitten off.'_

Winry cast a glance at Croc-Head and the now much healthier-looking Pretty. This had been the first day she'd avoided contact with her previous patient – the chimera was looking just too well-rested and energetic for Winry to feel comfortable putting herself near those teeth.

As though aware of her gaze, both chimeras raised their heads. Croc-Head simply lay back down again, but Pretty rose and trotted to the very limits of her chain, where she stood making noises that sounded quite like whimpers, her reptilian tail sliding back and forth on the floor as though in some parody of a wag.

In fact, Winry couldn't help noticing the chimera looked very much like Den when the dog was begging for attention and a scratch on the head.

Was it possible Pretty wanted the same – did she want more of the attention Winry had bestowed on her while she was out of commission? It was the cliché of practically every heart-warming animal-human bond story...but a cliché with a basis in fact. While injured the animal was unable to attack you, but while it was incapacitated it adjusted to your presence and learned that you were not a threat.

And Croc-Head seemed rather antisocial – definitely took after the crocodile part of the mix-up – so if she assumed Pretty's canine side outweighed her reptile side...then it was likely she was instinctively seeking out a potential 'pack'.

Winry still approached warily; Pretty might not have teeth as fearsome as Croc-Head's, but they would certainly do a lot of damage.

The chimera wriggled expectantly as she approached, the whining only increasing in volume. Tentatively, Winry patted Pretty on the head, and a forked tongue licked at her fingers happily. The blonde ran a firm hand over the chimera's spine, and Pretty arched into the caress.

"Good girl," she muttered absently.

She couldn't help but feel sorry for Pretty – so desperate for company and attention that she attached herself to whoever offered the meagrest hint of it.

Winry ran her fingers over the collar, loosing the buckle that held it closed and letting the thick leather and attached chain clatter to the ground. This time, when she limped back to the toilet to resume scraping and tugging at the metal, the chimera accompanied her, claws clicking on the concrete, whuffing happily.

-xxx-

Pride cursed – loudly and vociferously – as he carried a plate down the corridor once again. This time it featured chicken and a small salad; humans required balanced diets to remain healthy.

There had been no overt signs of Win-_the human_ trying to renew her escape attempt, but Pride knew she hadn't given up. There was no air of defeat about her, no sign of resignation – not the slightest hint that she'd accepted her fate as a hostage and was prepared to cooperate.

She'd even made friends with one of the chimeras – a vicious monster designed to attack her to keep her imprisoned, and she'd gone and turned it into a devoted puppy that never left her side. She kept it off its chain, was teaching it some commands – to sit, stay, come when she called – and even let it sleep on the bed with her!

Pride knew he should have informed Father that one of the chimeras had been compromised, but every time he opened his mouth to tell him, he'd remember the expression of pure joy on Win-_the human's_ face as the chimera's long tongue snaked out to lick at her cheek...and he'd find himself utterly incapable of taking that away from her.

Just more proof that this was a bad idea – he should take himself away from this, should tell Father she could probably persuade him to help her escape or something, anything so he could get away from her. He had originally thought he could be logical about this – that...whatever...he was feeling for the mechanic would either pass or would be easy to squash.

Not so. Pride was actually beginning to pity humans; if their emotions were even half as intense, they must spend their lives being led around by them. Either that, or their every spare moments would be spent battling against them.

It had been the speed at which these...emotions...consumed him that had really thrown him. Though perhaps that could be explained by their intensity – did Edward Elric really feel this much for the girl?

Still, he supposed it only boded well for their cause; if the Elric boy felt as he did, then he would be falling over himself to do as they said and keep her safe.

He unbarred the door, opened it and entered. Win-_the human_ was behind the curtain that hid the bathroom area, as Pride could see her companion's long tail peeking out beneath it.

He barely had time to set the plate down before she was scrambling out from behind the cloth, looking almost nervous. Pride said nothing, just turned on his heel and walked out, shutting and barring the door behind him.

Maybe if he limited his contact with her, this...thing...would go away.

Of course, he'd been limiting his contact ever since he'd bandaged his ankle, and it hadn't really done any good – in fact, it had only intensified his need. Was this how addicted humans felt when they needed a fix? If so, they had his sympathies.

-xxx-

The door opened, and Winry jerked awake as the beam of light stabbed across the room. Pretty stirred, raising her head from where she'd been sleeping at Winry's feet – bad habits for a pet, especially such a large one, but the blonde had found it reassuring to feel the chimera there, to have physical proof that she was not alone in the crushing darkness that descended every time she turned out the light.

There was a lean figure silhouetted in the doorway, and she realised it was Pride.

She had a moment to be amused – and satisfied – at the fact that it was becoming easier to distinguish him all the time; she didn't draw parallels between him and Ed any more. Her brain had adapted, and was now focusing on the differences to distinguish them, just as someone who knew identical twins could tell them apart because their brain focused on the differences.

Pride had become a separate entity in her mind, only reminding her of Ed in passing, or when he made an expression Ed often wore.

At first, Winry thought she'd slept through the usual breakfast time (if there _was_ a usual breakfast time – it wasn't as though she could tell) until she realised he held nothing in his hands.

That meant this wasn't a meal visit, and at that realisation the blonde scrambled out of bed, Pretty hopping to the ground beside her, the fine hairs along the chimera's back standing up as she picked up on Winry's distress.

The mechanic's first thought was that they'd found Ed and they were about to drag her out of here to display her. That was followed by the other, rather more grim possibility – that they'd been unable to find Ed and Al, and had decided her captivity was a waste of resources and she should be killed.

The set, intense expression on Pride's face only strengthened that possibility. Winry began to wonder what she could possibly do if he came at her – it wasn't as though she had anything to defend herself with.

Pride yanked violently on the light's cord as he passed, and Winry had to blink the coloured spots from her eyes as light suddenly flooded the room.

Hands closed around her shoulders, and she became aware Pride had closed the distance between them. She pushed against his chest automatically, trying to force him away from her, but it was like trying to shove one of the walls surrounding her; the impact shot up her arms but the homunculus in front of her didn't even rock back on his heels.

Pretty was growling softly, her tail lashing from side to side in her agitation.

Winry swallowed, her suddenly-dry throat constricting as she hissed, "What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Pride repeated slowly, and the mechanic had the sinking feeling she'd just pissed him off further. "_What do I want? I want you to get out of my head!_"

"Wha-?" Winry's puzzled mutter was cut off when Pride shook her, as though he were trying to punish a disobedient puppy.

"_How did you do it – how? Do you have some kind of weird alchemy that lets you do things like this? Or are you just so much in Ed's head that you're in mine by default?_"

"Uh..." Winry was scrambling frantically for some response that would mollify him. Unfortunately she was getting the feeling that no such thing existed, and that any reply from her would simply goad him further.

Another shake, another near-shriek of frustration. "_Why can't I stop thinking about you? Why do I feel like cheering you up every time you look the slightest bit upset? Why do I want to bust you out of here every time I see you limp across the room?_"

The next thing Winry knew, he was kissing her.

At least, if that could be called be a kiss. It was more like blunt pressure smashing her lips against her teeth, a hand on the back of her neck pinning her in place. Winry let it continue for approximately two seconds, too shocked to do anything, but then sanity returned and she tried to shove him away.

Of course, it did nothing, so she tried biting him. He hissed – she could feel his breath as though it were her own – but didn't pull back. Pretty was barking wildly, obviously distressed but not daring to attack her homunculus master.

The mechanic thrashed like a landed fish, trying to scream but only making a high, keening noise in the back of her throat. She tried to bring her knee up between Pride's legs, but before she'd even touched him he drew away with a howl of rage.

Pretty had fastened her teeth in the homunculus' thigh and as Winry watched, the chimera shook her head from side to side violently, tearing flesh and sinew away. The wound healed instantly, of course, and Pretty dodged Pride's reflexive swipe to bound in front of Winry, snarling protectively.

Pride cursed, and the shadows along the walls and floor rippled and writhed, then sprang up like snakes ready to strike.

Acting purely on instinct, Winry fell to the floor and threw her arms around the creature who had defended her, hoping Pride wouldn't attack if it meant injuring her. Proven correct when the shadows stuttered in mid-air and then collapsed back into quiescence once more, she stared up at him, not daring to move. She felt as though she were frozen in front of some predator's gaze, and the slightest shift on her part would provoke an attack.

Pride glared down at her, and for a moment Winry could have sworn she saw something close to remorse flicker in his eyes. But she must have been mistaken, because he turned away with a few low profanities and strode from the cell, slamming the door behind him.

Winry was left crouched on the floor, her sprained ankle throbbing in rebuke for her hasty drop, her arms around a chimera (still growling softly), lips bruised and wet and feeling more confused than she'd ever been in her life.

"What the hell was that?" she muttered, wiping her mouth.

And trying not to think about how Pride kissing her was sort of like Ed kissing her...at least physically.

-xxx-

"Shit."

It was really all Pride's mind seemed capable of spitting out.

"Shit. Shitshitshitshit_shit_!"

Still, he felt it summed up the situation nicely.

That little display had gone well beyond a few too-affectionate thoughts, which he had foolishly assumed would be the extent of this plague. Annoying and disturbing, sure, but he'd never expected anything like...like that!

Even thinking back on it, it seemed as though he must have been possessed, and indeed that was what it had felt like. He had been sitting on one of the upper levels, staring down at the chimeras that roamed the halls, idly daydreaming...and somehow, his thoughts had wandered to Win-_the human_.

They hadn't been idle, harmless musings, either. No, before he knew it – before he could stop his brain from venturing into stupidity – he had been wondering what it would be like to kiss her. What it would feel like to press that soft, slender body against his...

He shook his head roughly and slammed it back against the stone behind him with enough force to leave a human brain-damaged.

This had gone on far too long.

He knew what he had to do.

-xxx-

_AN: Thanks to justcallmefaye for beta-ing this._


	4. Live Wire

**Chapter 4**

**Live Wire**

When the door opened and Pride entered again, Winry tottered to her feet as swiftly as she could, her whole body wound tight with tension.

"I'm busting you out of here," the homunculus said, without any preliminaries.

The mechanic blinked, certain she'd misheard. "What?"

"Are you hard of hearing? I said I'm getting you out of here!" Pride snapped.

"_Why?_"

"Never mind why, just come on!"

"And I'm just supposed to trust you, is that it?" Winry asked, laying on as much scepticism as possible.

Pride folded his arms and gave her an exasperated look so much like Ed's that she blinked. "Will you be any worse off?"

He had a point, Winry conceded. Trusting him could hardly make her situation worse. "Okay, fine, just give me a minute to get Pretty..."

"You want to bring that thing with you?"

"Why not?" Winry snapped. She knew she was probably being unreasonable, but she couldn't bring herself to leave the poor chimera here.

Pride looked like he could come up with several thousand reasons as to why not, but apparently decided to would be swifter not to argue with her. While Winry had only hobbled halfway across the room to the tethered chimera, the shadows had leapt from the floor and severed the chain about three feet from Pretty's collar.

Even though he claimed to be helping her, Winry couldn't hold in a little shiver at the evidence that he could also make the shadows ridiculously sharp and capable of severing metal.

"Come on, girl, we're getting out of here...I think," she muttered to Pretty, wrapping the chain-turned-leash around her hand.

Pretty's long, forked tongue lapped at Winry's wrist for a moment, but the creature began to growl threateningly when Pride approached, their last encounter obviously fresh in her mind.

"It's okay," the mechanic whispered, patting the fine, bristling hairs along the Pretty's back. "He's not going to do anything creepy this time...I think."

"Stop coddling the stupid thing and let's get going!" Pride barked, looking edgy.

"We're coming, we're coming," Winry hissed, limping in the direction of the door. "Take it easy!"

Pride regarded her mobility – which Winry placed as somewhere between a snail and a crippled tortoise – with a look of murderous frustration. The next thing the mechanic knew, she was being swept up in Pride's arm and onto his back like a child. On instinct, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her fingers still tightly clenched around Pretty's chain, and she yelped as her ankle knocked against his leg.

"Don't yell in my ear!"

"Don't touch my sprained ankle!"

Pride swore, already beginning to regret this, and began to run.

Winry clung to his back, biting her lip against the throbbing pain in her ankle as she was jolted up and down. The chain she was holding snapped back and forth as Pretty galloped beside them, claws clattering on the hard floor. She tried to keep track of the twists and turns Pride was following, but soon gave up – there was no way she'd be able to hold all this in her mind, and why was she even trying to remember it anyway? Hopefully, she wouldn't be back here, so she concentrated on not letting go of either Pride's shoulders or Pretty's chain.

-xxx-

As soon as Pride had clambered up the pipes to the surface and set her down on her own feet, Winry glanced around at the towering buildings, the cobbled streets...

"Are we in Central?"

"Bingo," Pride nodded, glancing down the street.

"What time is it?" Winry asked.

It was clearly very late – the moon was high in the sky, and the streetlamps revealed that the roads were deserted.

"About one in the morning," Pride replied absently.

Winry winced – one in the morning! She knew being locked up without any windows or way of telling the time would screw up her internal clock!

Pretty whined, and she reached down to pat the chimera reassuringly. "What are you looking for, by the way?"

"Some way to get us out of this city," the homunculus muttered. "We can't hang around here."

"You didn't really think this escape-thing through did you?" Winry grumbled, limping forward into the empty street.

"I can always put you back in the cell..."

"You'd have to catch me first!"

"Yeah, like _that_ would be difficult..."

Winry opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly Pride had yanked her into a doorway, one hand clapped over her mouth to stifle her yelp as her injured ankle dragged.

"There's two soldiers just down the block," he hissed. "Keep quiet!"

Winry pushed his hand away, trying to disguise how uncomfortable she was – she couldn't help but remember the last time their faces had ended up in such close proximity and what had happened then – and glanced down the street. Sure enough, she could see two military personnel standing beside a car, their brass buttons reflecting the light from the streetlamp. They spoke in low voices for a few moments, then began to make their way down the street – fortunately in the opposite direction from where Winry, Pride and Pretty were hiding.

"Probably got called out here for some reason," Winry whispered. "Help me get to the car."

"They'll see us!" he protested.

"Use your freaky pet shadows or something – that car could be our ticket out of here."

Winry knew she should probably be feeling more guilt about essentially stealing a car, but they needed to get out of the city quickly (in a more inconspicuous fashion than her on Pride's back with Pretty running alongside) and recent events had left her with some animosity towards the military.

Pride grumbled, but did as she'd instructed, using his shadows to shield them from view. It wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny, of course, but it would at least keep the soldiers from noticing something strange in their peripheral vision.

Winry opened the back door of the car as quietly as she could and urged Pretty up onto the back seat.

"They didn't leave the keys," Pride hissed. "How were you planning on starting this thing?"

"I'm going to hotwire it," Winry said honestly.

"...you know how to do that?"

"Yeah – my grandmother taught me," the mechanic explained as she cautiously popped the hood and began to fiddle. "We had this really, really crappy car, you see – Granny never told me where she got it but I always suspected she'd found it in a ravine or something – but the ignition port was damaged and there were no keys, so you had to hotwire the thing to get it to start. It finally died when I was about thirteen-"

"Your grandmother was teaching you to hotwire cars before you were _thirteen_! If I had known you were a criminal mastermind when Father told me to grab you, I'd have left you well alone."

"Keep it down! And get ready to jump in the passenger seat, because as soon as the engine turns over, those soldiers are going to come running."

Pride cast a speculative glance up the street. "It would be a lot easier if I just knocked them out or something..."

"Only as a last resort."

The engine suddenly roared into life and Pride jumped. Winry slammed the hood closed and practically leapt into the driver's seat, leaving the homunculus to scramble after her as shouts and the sound of running feet began to resound down the road.

Of course, he couldn't help but ask, "Do you actually know how to dri-"

Then inertia slammed him against his seat as Winry floored the accelerator and the car charged forward. The startled yelp from the backseat told him Pretty had just suffered a similar fate.

"This is much more responsive than Granny's old car," the mechanic commented as she spun the wheel to turn onto the main road.

She grimaced as she was forced to use her injured foot to work the clutch again and shift into a lower gear.

Pride was on the verge of breathing a sigh of relief when their pace began to slow, until he realised the car hadn't slowed nearly enough.

"Don't you think we should slow down a bit – you know, now that we're out of their sight?"

Winry didn't even turn to look at him – though considering the speed she was driving at, Pride considered that a good thing. "They'll probably be alerting headquarters, which means we need to get out of the city as fast as possible."

While some part of Pride saw the wisdom in that, most of him was busy pointing out that if another car happened to shoot out in front of them, they'd probably be smashed to a pulp. He knew he could survive any crash, but this pace made even him nervous!

He glanced back to see if he could use the chimera's distress as an argument for stopping, but unfortunately found that Pretty was being true to canine instincts by hanging her head out of the window, her long tail wriggling back and forth enthusiastically.

-xxx-

Pride had expected Winry to keep driving until they ran out of fuel, not pull over on a deserted forest road as soon as she could to check their supplies.

"How do you know they even have supplies?" he asked the blonde.

"This is a military vehicle," she pointed out, opening the back door to let Pretty out. "Trust me, there'll be some stuff in the trunk. Can you use your shadows or something to get it open?"

Pride sighed, severing the metal of the lock by manipulating the shadows cast by the car's headlights. Winry peered into the dark depths, but the only source of light was useless at this angle, so she put her hand inside and tried to guide herself by touch.

"Let's see, we seem to have...a couple of blankets – good! Hey, there's some camouflage gear and two helmets as well. And...I think this is either water or fuel – can't tell in this light. Probably water, though, because if it's fuel there's a hell of a lot of it. Okay, that was definitely water; I think the fuel is in this tin-thing. There's what feels like some rope and a tent or something...also these two briefcase shaped things that I'd like a closer look at..."

Winry heaved them out and deposited them on the ground. Pretty, having attended to her business behind a nearby tree, snuffled curiously at them, but the mechanic gently but firmly pushed her nose away. "No, girl – not for you."

In the moonlight, she could vaguely make out a dark cross on a light-coloured background on the smaller case, indicating it was probably a first-aid kit. Making a mental note to check that for some sturdier wraps for her ankle, Winry opened the other one.

Pride rolled his eyes and glanced back at the road they'd come from, on the lookout for anyone driving down it – their car had probably already been reported stolen by now.

"Score!" Winry's enthusiastic voice came to him. "This is the emergency supply kit! Maps, canned food, matches, kindling – even some cash! And I think this is a pocket knife-" there was a sudden snapping sound. "Yeah, it's a pocket knife. And there's a gun and some bullets-"

"What?" Pride barked, spinning around.

"But they're not going to do us any good," Winry continued. "Do you even have any idea how to load a gun? Because I certainly don't."

"No," Pride grudgingly admitted. "But maybe we can use it to bluff – you know, to scare people away."

"I'm pretty sure your creepy shadow-thing will do that."

The homunculus rolled his eyes again. "What do you care what we have anyway? I mean, there's a plan here, right? You're actually going somewhere?"

"Says the guy who broke me out and thus was supposed to have the escape plan."

"Hey, I got you out, didn't I?" Pride defended. "That _was_ my plan!"

"You mean your plan was to bust me out and basically hope I had somewhere to go?"

"Well..." Pride glanced away at the dark trees surrounding them.

Winry snorted as she placed their small stash back into the trunk. "Not that I don't appreciate it...but just admit it – your plan was to hope that I had a plan." But her amusement vanished as she contemplated – for the hundredth time since they'd driven out of Central – their rather grim position. "And sorry to disappoint you on that front, but I don't. At least nothing beyond 'get out of Central and hide somewhere'."

"Great...just great," Pride muttered darkly, folding his arms and looking suspiciously like he was sulking.

"Well, at least we've got supplies and some money," Winry said optimistically, taking Pretty's dangling chain and leading the chimera back to the car. "Come on – might as well try to cover as much distance as we can while it's still dark."

Pride grimaced as he climbed into the car once more, wondering what Father's reaction to that particular piece of news would be.

After all, it was on Father's orders that he was here.

-xxx-

_AN: Thanks to justcallmefaye for beta-ing this!_


	5. Hideout

**Chapter 5**

**Hideout**

Pride swore – viciously and repeatedly – under his breath in the empty car. Winry had stopped to relieve herself, and had taken Pretty with her in case the chimera needed a toilet break, too.

This plan was not off to a good start.

When days had passed with no way of contacting the Elric brothers, Father had decided upon another use for Winry.

"_Get her out. Let her think you are helping her escape, and see where she goes to ground. She will lead us to the Elric brothers."_

Except it seemed Winry had no idea where Edward and Alphonse were. Her main plan seemed to be to get herself away, somewhere Father couldn't find her and try to use her against the Elric brothers again...but exactly where that 'somewhere' would be, she was still working out.

"I went to Liore, once," Winry's voice drifted to him, along with some rustling noises that told Pride she was making her way back to him. "Maybe we could go there? They're kind of re-building their city at the moment, so we probably wouldn't be noticed...at least as long as you stayed out of sight-"

"Hey!"

"I'm not trying to be mean," she insisted as she came into view. "But someone who looks like the famous Fullmetal Alchemist with red tattoos all over his body is hardly inconspicuous."

"Well what about her?" The homunculus said accusingly, pointing at Pretty.

"...okay, maybe Liore isn't the best idea," Winry conceded. "But it's either that or up north, and I can tell you right now we don't have the supplies needed to survive up there."

And she wasn't about to go home – she had a feeling they'd be checking there first. 'They' being whoever Father was going to use to pursue her now that Pride had defected. She'd shot down Ed's suggestion of hiding in another country all those weeks ago, but now she was seriously considering it. After all, Ed telling her to hide in case he failed to save Amestris was one thing, getting out of range because she was going to be used as a hostage against them was quite different.

Of course, that left the question of how to get out of Amestris. Papers were checked at all borders, except the one that led the the desert, and frankly, Winry thought even less of their chances of surviving there than of surviving in the north.

"Maybe we could just hide out in the wilderness somewhere," she offered weakly. "You know, just get far away from Central and keep our heads down until..."

"Until what?"

"Until we think of something better!"

Ignoring Pride's dark and bitter mutterings – honestly, anyone would think he had some kind of deadline to be keeping or something – Winry took one of the containers of water from the trunk and poured a small amount into one of the helmets, letting Pretty lap the liquid from the impromptu bowl as she tried to work out a plan.

Dawn was breaking – a thin sliver of sun was already cresting the horizon. While Winry welcomed the fact that she could now see what she was doing, she knew that their strange group would be more easily seen in daylight. By now, the soldiers had surely reported the car stolen, to say nothing of the people who might already be looking for Ed (who Pride was physically identical to)...or herself.

"We need to keep moving," she muttered, half to herself, as she urged the now hydrated chimera back into the car. "Find somewhere we won't be found easily...might have to dump the car as well..."

"This plan sucks..." Pride growled, feeling frustration sting his gut. It looked like it would be some time before Winry had any contact with the Elric brothers. If that was the case, why was he here? If she had no clearer ideas on Ed and Al's location than they did, why couldn't he just drag her back? At least that way, they'd have a hostage when the Elrics finally turned up.

Winry was under the hood (again), and Pride soon heard the growl that signalled the engine turning over.

She practically jumped into the driver's seat – at least, jumped as much as someone with a twisted ankle could. "Get in if you're going to."

-xxx-

"This is just perfect!" Pride drawled as Winry tipped the last tin of fuel upside down, futilely trying to wring a few more drops from it.

"Oh, shut up!" the mechanic grumbled, tossing the empty container to the ground in a fit of pique. "We knew this was going to happen eventually."

"Well, yeah, but I kinda thought we'd have gotten a little further than this!"

"This is actually a pretty good place," Winry commented, trying to be optimistic.

"We're in the middle of the freaking wilderness on a freaking dirt track through a forest!" Pride bellowed. "How is this a 'good place'?"

A soft growl began to rumble in Pretty's throat, the chimera obviously interpreting the homunculus' furious tone as a threat against Winry.

"Oh, pipe down, you stupid mutt!" Pride spat. The growling only got louder, and Pretty's long tail began to sweep back and forth aggressively.

"Down, girl," Winry told her, placing a soothing hand on Pretty's back.

It seemed Pretty had never really forgotten the time she'd taken a chunk out of Pride's leg. But the chimera's change in behaviour was strange; barely four days ago, she'd been so petrified of Pride she'd only intervened when it was clear Winry was in considerable distress. Now, the chimera bristled and growled at _any_ behaviour she interpreted as threatening Winry.

"This forest _is_ a good place," Winry addressed Pride, picking up their previous conversation as if it had never been interrupted. "Because it's a long distance out of anyone's way, which means that we could comfortably set up shop here for a while and not be discovered."

"And exactly how will we 'set up shop' here?" Pride sneered. "Wait, let me guess – 'we'll figure it out'. Is that your answer to everything? Do you usually fly by the seat of your pants like this?"

"Not usually," Winry admitted grudgingly. "Believe me, I like well-thought out, detailed plans as much as the next person – this is sort of a new experience for me, too. But we've got a tent and stuff, so we could probably hide out somewhere in the forest – we just need to wander around for a bit and find a good spot."

"Well, I think we should hold off on the exploring until it's daylight," Pride commented. "Humans have such shitty vision, you'd probably step on a snake and die or fall down a cliff and break your leg or something."

"But what else are we going to do?" Winry pointed out. "Just sit around and wait for the sun to come up? You've got good night vision, right? So you can give me a piggy-back again."

"_What?_"

"Come on, my internal clock won't let me sleep for hours yet!"

Pride knew that was true. Days locked in a cell without no outside source of light and intermittent food (when Pride or Father remembered she needed to be fed) had ensured that Winry's internal clock had been well off what normal humans' were. And she had only encouraged it since, driving all through the night and sleeping curled up on the backseat of the car during the day.

"And it's just us and Pretty," Winry went on. "You won't be ruining your macho image."

"I do not have a 'macho image'!" Pride barked, incensed. "That's a human thing!"

"Well, you can prattle on about human sensibilities all you like, but you've been acting awfully human during this little trip," Winry pointed out.

"I have not!"

"Then why did you help me escape?"

Pride snapped his mouth shut and glared. He may be angry, but there was no way he'd betray his mission.

Winry beamed triumphantly when he didn't say anything. "See? You _are_ a good guy, no matter how much you try to hide it."

Pride tried not to shift uncomfortably. While this was certainly not the first time he'd lied to Winry, it was beginning to feel...wrong...to be planning to betray her when she seemed so convinced he was helping her, when she had such faith in him.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he grumbled, rolling the remaining supplies up in the tent and binding it with the coils of rope, hoping that would be enough to serve as a backpack. "Put this on."

Winry did so, wrapping Pretty's chain around her wrist before Pride scooped her onto his back and set off through the darkness.

"So...what exactly constitutes a 'good place'?" he asked.

"A source of water," Winry told him. "Beyond that...we'll know it when we find it."

-xxx-

"This is perfect!" Winry declared.

"This place has no electricity, no food, looks it's been abandoned for about ten years, and the only human life nearby is at least twenty minutes walk through the forest, so we can't exactly fetch aid in a hurry," Pride pointed out dryly, his eyes scanning the tiny cabin Winry had found.

There were gaps between the planks that made up the walls, and a brick fireplace looked like it was the only thing that could survive a strong breeze. There was a rotten-looking bedframe in one corner, with a moulding mattress and some droppings scattered over it that looked suspiciously like some animal had been using it as a nest.

Creepers had slithered in through the door and windows, and as the one-room cabin had nothing resembling a bathing area, he thought it was a good bet that they'd find some old, abandoned outhouse nearby.

"But that means we're also a twenty-minute walk through thick forest away from being discovered," Winry explained, setting down the supplies that she'd been carrying. "This place will at least keep the worst of the weather out, and the dense forest means we could light a fire at night and we wouldn't be spotted-"

"It also means we have no phone, no toilet..."

"Oh, like we were going to have those things hiding out in the wilderness anyway!" Winry snapped.

After being caught in a small rainstorm just as the sun started to rise, Winry was more than willing to take whatever shelter they got.

"I think I even saw a well back there, so we have a supply of water, at least," the blonde mechanic muttered as she set the depleted containers of water down.

"Assuming it's drinkable and not infested with algae. And what about food?" Pride pointed out.

"We'll figure something out," Winry muttered darkly. "If nothing else, I'm sure you could catch some rabbits or something..."

The homunculus laughed sarcastically. "And you know how to skin and prepare them, right?"

"I could figure it out – it's really just basic anatomy."

Pride set down what he'd been carrying – significantly more than Winry – and glanced about the cabin once more. Pretty sniffed curiously at the fireplace, whining and scrabbling at the bricks with her claws.

"Could you use your shadows to...get this stuff out?" Winry asked, gesturing to the debris that littered the cabin floor. "Or don't they work that way?"

"They can work that way," Pride said smugly, and the shadows along the walls swept themselves across the floor like hyper-efficient brooms, making Pretty yelp in surprise. Winry had to jump over them as they swept leaves, droppings and weeds out the door.

"Neat," she smiled. "Can you get rid of the bed, too? I looks like I couldn't sleep on it without risking some kind of disease."

"What am I, a glorified housekeeper?" the homunculus grumbled. "You do it."

"But I've got a twisted ankle!" Winry bleated, trying to sound pitiful. "And you're so much stronger than me..."

"Okay, okay, I'll do it if you'll stop whining," Pride spat, uncomfortable at just how quickly her plea had worked.

"Thank you!"

And just as uncomfortable at how much her honest gratitude meant to him.

-xxx-

As night was beginning to fall, Winry piled the wood Pride had retrieved for her into the fireplace, ready to start a blaze. She couldn't actually light it until it was dark – rising smoke was too easy to see during the day, and too much of give away – but she wanted to be ready.

Tonight, she planned to have her baked beans cooked, as opposed to stone cold.

Pretty was standing beside her, her tail whipping back and forth in the tight wriggles Winry had come to interpret as expressing either happiness or excitement. She'd found that when the chimera was aggressive, the sweeps tended to be much longer and wider, as though Pretty were preparing to trip someone with the appendage.

She'd taken off Pretty's collar as soon as they'd settled in the cabin, her gut instinct telling her that the chimera wouldn't wander far. And she'd been right – she didn't think Pretty had gone more than a few paces outside the cabin.

The mechanic waited for night to fall, her injured leg stretched out in front of her as she gently flexed the joint, moving her foot in small, tight circles in an effort to encourage mobility in the ankle, and thus, swifter healing. She smiled softly to herself as she stroked the thin fur on Pretty's back.

"What are you smirking about?" Pride asked as he strode through the door, his arms loaded with wood.

"The fact that I'm going to eat hot food tonight!" Winry proclaimed, her grin widening.

"And that's something to celebrate?"

"If you had to eat, you'd understand."

Pride rolled his eyes. "Ha ha, very amusing. But you might want to know, that civilisation we're about twenty minutes away from? Turns out it's a farming hamlet, so we might want to watch out."

"How so?" Winry frowned.

"Well, it's the farmers who are going to be wandering into the forest looking for grazing areas or water or whatever the hell farmers concern themselves with – so there's a risk we might be discovered."

Winry shrugged. "Well, if we are, I doubt they have good lines of communication to the military, so even if they are slapping wanted posters of me all over Amestris, we should be able to get away in time. We just need to make sure we don't attract attention."

-xxx-

Ed grimaced, chewing the stone cold baked beans as little as possible before swallowing hastily. As long as he didn't let himself think about it, the food was almost tolerable.

He wanted something hot – stew, preferably, though he'd take anything really at this point. But they couldn't risk lighting a fire; by necessity, their conversations had to take place far from the tiny hamlet they were occupying, far from any curious eyes.

Ed has dragged enough people into his mess already.

He spooned up another mouthful, and tried to take comfort in the fact that at least Winry was comfortable, and warm, and far away from there.

-xxx-

_AN: Thanks to justcallmefaye for beating this!_


	6. Closing In

**Chapter 6**

**Closing In**

"Are you sure you'll be alright with that?" Winry asked, gesturing to the gun Pride held.

"Not really, but of the two of us, I'm the one who's going to survive a misfire," the homunculus replied, examining both the gun and the rounds as he made his way out of the cabin door. "So I'm the one who'll be screwing around with it."

"If you say so..." Winry muttered. She didn't really see a point to learning to use the gun at all; after all, if she was confronted by someone who looked beyond the gun jammed in their face and realised she didn't know what she was doing, then it was probably someone who was familiar with weapons and likely had one on them, which meant she was screwed anyway, gun or no gun.

But Pride was insistent she have something to defend herself with. Winry wasn't planning on having to defend herself anytime soon...but then again, she hadn't planned on being kidnapped, either, so maybe Pride had the right idea. She'd just have to deal with her bad experiences with guns.

Of course, any bluff or weapon would probably be secondary to Pretty. Winry smiled to herself as she petted the chimera's head and ruffled the thin fur around the animal's bare neck.

Pretty's collar and chain lay abandoned beside the crumple of blankets and camouflage gear Winry had used as a bed; they had discovered the chimera was very pack-oriented, which was to say that she didn't need to be tied up as she tried to stay within ten feet of Winry at all times.

"You're a good girl, aren't you?" Winry cooed, then jumped as gunfire sounded outside.

It was a lot louder than she'd expected it to be, and her first thought was that something had gone wrong. "Are you alright?"

"I just found the safety," Pride called back as his hand repaired itself. Now he needed to figure out how to load it...he was fast finding out this was a lot more difficult than those military people made it look.

Winry frowned, and took a sip from one of the water containers, automatically pouring some into the helmet propped up in one corner that served as Pretty's waterbowl.

Another deafening blast signalled a second gunshot. Winry reflected that they weren't being very stealthy about this, and the gunshots were probably going to attract a lot of unwanted attention.

-xxx-

Gunshots rang out from the forest, and Ed blinked, staring at the dark trees. But when no more followed after the first two, he dismissed it – probably someone from the village after a fox or something.

Still...there was something niggling at the back of his mind. He'd heard some of the villagers talking about finding an abandoned military vehicle on one of the backroads while they were herding sheep...had someone come to track them down?

-xxx-

"...and that's how you operate the gun!" Pride finished, looking supremely satisfied with himself.

"That's great," Winry muttered. "Can you put it away now?"

The homunculus looked strangely hurt, but Winry couldn't help feeling an aversion to guns. Especially when she thought about what had happened that last time she'd picked one up.

Though being cuddled like that by Ed had been kind of nice, even if she hadn't been in much of a state to enjoy it at the time.

The disgruntled Pride placed the gun on the mantelpiece – part of the brick fireplace, so it hadn't deteriorated with the rest of the wooden house. The gaps between the wooden planks ensured that the cold wind found the walls no barrier at all, so Winry had been spending the nights curled up in as much cloth as possible, with Pretty alongside her to provide body heat.

It was no good trying to use Pride as a source of warmth; Winry wasn't sure if it was a trait of homunculi in general or Pride in particular, but he always seemed to be at room temperature. It was something she still couldn't get used to – she expected to encounter a certain warmth when she took someone's hand or slapped them genially on the shoulder, and to find it absent in Pride was unsettling.

At least her ankle had healed nicely. It still ached when she walked for too long and when she tried to run, but now it could support her weight without pain.

"I'm going to go catch some rabbits," Pride grumbled sulkily, and Winry worked hard not to laugh. How knew a homunculus could become broody simply by dismissing his recently-acquired skilled with a firearm?

-xxx-

Pretty's understanding of the world was limited. Her canine and reptilian brain had combined to produce a rather cunning mind with a strong pack mentality, but an animal was still an animal, and so to her, living things fell into one of two categories: Pack and Not-Pack.

She had learned that Not-Pack could be food, could be things not worthy of notice, or could be dangerous. What she classified things as depended on how they reacted to her, and how they reacted to Winry.

Pretty's impression of Winry was much more abstract – and at the same time, much clearer – than a human's would have been. She did not identify Winry by physical appearance so much as by scent, by voice, by the weight and rhythm of her footsteps and the way she moved.

Pride was identified by the same methods, but Pretty was far more wary of Pride than she was of her Pack-Leader. Even to her mutated nose, there was something in Pride's scent that made her cautious, a wrongness that the chimera could not understand and so regarded that scent's bearer with faint suspicion. In addition – while Pretty's memory was far cloudier than a human's would have been – she knew that Pride had once done something to distress Winry, to the extent that Pretty's fear of the homunculus had been overcome by the need to protect Pack, and so Pretty remained wary of Pride's actions, especially those taken towards Winry.

As the only Pack the chimera had ever had, Pretty was instinctively protective of Winry. So when her sharp nose caught the distinctive scent of humans approaching, when she saw the lights cutting through the darkness of the night it was only natural she bristle and growl warningly at the door, advertising that she wouldn't stand for an intrusion on her Pack-Leader's rest.

-xxx-

Winry stirred as Pretty snarled and stood, disturbing the warm cocoon of blankets and spare clothes the blonde had wrapped them in, and she was about to call out to the chimera when she heard voices.

They were low, but harsh, and they were most definitely not Pride's. In fact, Pride was nowhere to be seen. That was hardly unusual – he didn't need to sleep, so Winry figured he didn't need to stay in the cabin and be bored out of his mind...as long as he didn't wander down to the little farming village and start freaking people out with his shadows (that just struck her as something he might do to amuse himself).

With the homunculus a very loud, attention-drawing scream away, Winry decided to just sneak out the back door. She would have grabbed the gun – and hope she remembered how to work it from Pride's earlier demonstration – but the voices were really so close to the cabin she didn't have time to fumble around in the dark for wherever Pride had left it.

She yanked on some of the loose skin at Pretty's neck to get the chimera to follow her out the back door, grabbing up Pretty's old collar and chain as she went. If she couldn't find the gun, Winry would have to make do with what she had.

And the chain proved useful when she opened the door and walked almost straight into the two men who had apparently been circling the house.

Winry acted on instinct, whipping the chain up between the legs of one of the figures.

She couldn't be sure in the darkness, but she thought his eyes actually crossed as his knees buckled and he folded to the ground with a strangled moan of pain. Pretty lunged in a silence that was almost as eerie as her growling had been, sinking long, slightly curved teeth into the other's arm. The mechanic didn't know if it was luck or instinct that had led the chimera to fasten herself onto the man's gun hand, but she was grateful for it, either way. The chain lashed out and caught the side of her opponent's head – her accuracy with a wrench seemed to be translating over well.

Unfortunately, the man already collapsing into unconsciousness had managed a few shouts of indignation and pain at Pretty's attack, and Winry knew their tentative cover was well and truly blown. She considered going back for the gun, but knew they didn't have time.

So she took off into the forest, allowing herself to shriek for the person that was probably her one chance at surviving being chased down by the military.

"_PRIDE!_"

-xxx-

Pride was wandering through the forest, kicking idly at sticks and dry leaves – sending small nocturnal animals scattering – when the distant sound of Winry's scream reached him.

He froze, and tried to resist the emotional, downright stupid urge to run back. Father had told him this would happen; that some of the military would be sent to them. It would make their escape seem more realistic, and his inevitable rescue would make the mechanic more attached to him, more trusting...

He knew he should wait – that the plan was for him to wait for at least fifteen minutes, to give her time to truly grasp the idea that she was to be either returned to Father or taken to a military prison before he rescued her. The longer he waited, the more grateful she would be to see him.

Gunshots rang out through the night, and Pride closed his eyes – a disturbingly human gesture – telling himself that it meant nothing; they had been instructed to fire but not to hit her, to scare but not to wound.

'They' being several members of the military who were under the delusion that they were important in Father's plans but were really just disposable pawns. If Father had instructed them not to hurt her, they wouldn't dare.

It occurred to Pride that Father might not have specified 'don't hurt her'; in fact, it was likely he had simply instructed them to bring her in alive. Father certainly wouldn't care if she was injured in the process.

Cursing himself all the way, Pride abandoned the plan and took off immediately.

-xxx-

Winry had just gained the fringe of the wilderness surrounding the cabin when gunshots thundered from behind her. Bark splintered off the trees around her, and some part of her mind registered that the shots seemed to be aimed at about knee-height; designed to disable, not kill.

She made it into the trees, feeling a dull relief that the bullets had not hit either her or Pretty, but whatever comfort she might have drawn from that was numbed by the thought that _holy shit she was being chased by people with guns!_

In Risembool, most people wished for more excitement in their lives. Winry had always thought she would be happy with a whole lot less.

Honestly, if she'd known being friends with Ed was going to be this much trouble, she'd...

Probably have done exactly the same, who was she kidding?

She swung right, nearly tripping over Pretty as she did so, trying to throw her pursuers off by deviating from her path. She was pretty sure there was a river she could use to try to navigate somewhere, but the forest was much more confusing in the darkness and she wasn't entirely sure she was even going in the right direction.

Of course, the farther she ran from her pursuers, the farther she ran from the light, and Winry ended up tripping over something hard and lumpy and going sprawling on the ground. Tiny pieces of grit scored her palms, and iron burst into her mouth as she bit her tongue. Suppressing a curse that would have given away her position, she pulled herself up and kept running.

Her recently-healed ankle began to ache, and it was feeling strangely loose, as though it wouldn't support her for very long. But they were still after her – she could hear them crashing through the undergrowth, so she kept going, determined to run until she either lost them or couldn't run anymore.

Some part of her wondered where Pride was – had he wandered so far away he hadn't heard her scream? But surely he'd heard the gunshots?

Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, enough so that she could jump over the moss-covered log in her path instead of tripping over it. But the trees still obscured most of the moonlight, and if there had been any landmarks in the wilderness around her Winry knew she wouldn't see them.

She had no clear idea of the direction she was running in, and could only hope she wasn't circling back to the cabin. Still, Pretty was running right beside her, and Winry liked to think the chimera would give her some sort of signal if they were approaching the military rather than fleeing them.

Was it her imagination, or did the noises of pursuit seem to be getting closer?

-xxx-

Ed huddled in the corner of the barn, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to keep warm without the benefit of a fire.

That had been doused as soon as they'd heard that a military van was in the area, even though dinner was only halfway cooked. Ed had been left with lukewarm soup that looked and smelled a little too much like dog food for him to be entirely comfortable eating it, and in the end he'd only finished half.

Greed had taken the rest though, and Ed wondered if that had been out of actual appetite – did homunculi get hungry? – or out of reflex. Had he just grabbed it because, as his name suggested, he simply wanted anything and everything that came his way?

Of course, it was always debatable exactly how much effect Ling was having, so maybe that had been his doing. Ling had certainly eaten enough when he was a human.

He thought about asking Greed about it, then decided against it – Greed seemed a bit touchy about that subject, and a screaming match would definitely draw unwanted attention. Not for the first time, Ed questioned why the military had come here; were they looking for them, or was it something completely unconnected to them and Ed was just being paranoid?

But they had seemed to be looking for something. They had come to the village, stalked up and down the roads for a little while, then set off into the forest.

Ed stiffened as he heard the distinctive crack of a gunshot. It was followed by several more, a rapid volley that suggested more than one shooter (or one shooter with Lieutenant Hawkeye-esque skills).

Ed leaned his shoulder against the door, peering out through the gap above the hinges into the night. He could see nothing, but that wasn't really a surprise – the forest was so dense in places it would even block lanterns, which was why they'd held many of their 'meetings' there.

No gunshots followed, and Ed's face twisted; he hated not knowing what was going on.

-xxx-

Pride resisted the urge to scream, curse, and possibly break a few necks. He found nothing at the cabin but two incapacitated men; one curled into the foetal position and cradling his genitals, the other cursing at his comrade and attempting to bandage a forearm that had been ripped open to the bone by razor-sharp teeth.

The homunculus noticed the deep bruises and sluggishly-bleeding cut on the side of his head, as though he'd been hit with something large and blunt, and thought it was safe to assume Winry had left her mark on him as well.

He ground his teeth and suppressed his frustration at the sight; they'd had one job – to catch Winry – and though they were six to her one (two, if he counted the chimera) they hadn't been able to even keep her in the cabin.

But then, this _was_ Winry. Pride supposed he should have known that if someone could slip the net, it would be her. And of course she'd take out some of her pursuers into the bargain, because Winry never did things halfway.

Pride silently vowed he would break himself of this habit of continually underestimating her.

-xxx-

_AN: Thanks, as always, to my beta – justcallmefaye!_


	7. Collision

**Chapter 7**

**Collision**

Winry was surprised when the trees began to thin, revealing glimpses of houses and streetlights. It seemed she was a lot closer to the village than she'd thought – in spite of her aching muscles and searing lungs, she'd hadn't really expected to have run so far so quickly.

Of course, being chased by people with guns was an excellent motivator.

For a moment, Winry paused – Pretty skittering to a halt beside her – as she wondered whether it would be better to run to the village or continue blundering around in the woods. In the village, she would at least be able to see where she was going and might even be able to locate a vehicle to get away – at least until Pride showed up. But the streetlights and the open field between the forest and the first house also meant that she'd be very exposed, easily crippled by a shot to the leg or foot.

Then again, it wasn't as though she was really getting anywhere running around in the woods. If she had any hope of doing something more productive than dashing between trees and waiting for Pride to show up, she had to go to the village.

More than anything, Winry did not like sitting around and waiting for something to happen – she was no one's damsel in distress!

The blonde gave Pretty a comforting scratch on the head, gauging the chimera's breathing. Relieved it didn't seem to be too heavy and Pretty would probably have no trouble keeping up with her, Winry bolted from the treeline like a startled hare, her eyes fixed on the village.

She refused to look back, and tried to ignore the insistent burning in her legs. Paradoxically, it seemed to have become worse since she'd stopped, as though once her limbs had halted they didn't want to start up again.

_'There are guys with guns behind you, there are guys with guns behind you,'_ Winry chanted mentally, using the idea as a spur.

Somehow, she reached the first house with no shouts or gunshots tearing through the night, leaping the low stone wall that bordered the back of the property. Winry tucked herself and Pretty behind the house, keeping the building between them and the forest as she caught her breath. With one arm over the chimera's neck, for long minutes Winry heard nothing but harsh panting – hers and her strange pet's.

Gradually, as her heartrate slowed and the stinging in her lungs calmed, Winry became aware of how strangely silent everything was. It wasn't the usual kind either – no buzz of nocturnal insects or sound of animals that was usually rampant in communities so close to the wilderness. This was the kind of quiet that entered the water when a shark was gliding just beneath the surface.

Were there soldiers in the village, too?

It would be just her luck to escape from the ones at the cabin and run right into another squad.

She stroked Pretty's thin, velvet-like fur, whispering low words of praise to distract herself from the uneasy silence as the mechanic contemplated their next move.

A neatly trimmed hedgerow bordered the front and sides of the house, and a large barn stood in the field nearby. Winry briefly considered hiding out in it, and even started to move in that direction...

But she froze as two figures suddenly appeared on the road, having stepped out from between two houses. The dim streetlights glinted off the guns held at ready in their hands.

Thought and reason returned from Winry's moments of panic and she dropped to the grass, wincing as Pretty gave a curious whine from beside her. The sound seemed to cut through the quiet like a drill, and the mechanic was sure they'd be discovered...

It was only when – after a few, terrified moments of pressing her cheek into the dirt so they might not see her – Winry looked up and realised that the soldiers hadn't moved that she remembered this was a farming village, and they'd likely dismissed the sound as made by one of the herding dogs.

"We need to be quiet, girl," she practically breathed, creeping down to the hedge line. Pretty followed much closer than she usually did, obviously sensing Winry's fear.

For Winry was definitely afraid. She had picked up on the fact that they seemed reluctant to kill her, but that was no guarantee of anything. If their aim went off, they had a good chance of killing her – even a shot in the leg would be fatal if it hit her femoral artery.

She told herself to stop thinking about that and concentrate on escaping.

_'And where the hell is Pride, anyway?'_ she thought grumpily. _'What's the use of dragging around an Ed lookalike with freaky tattoos who uses shadows like most people use a tool belt if he doesn't help out when the soldiers turn up?'_

Of course, since she'd left the cabin he probably had no idea where she was, but she wasn't about to start shouting for help. With the soldiers about a street away and Pride probably in the woods, she knew that would be more hindrance than help.

The soldiers were clearly engaged in some kind of patrol – probably making sure none of the villagers interfered with the guys running around in the forest – and when they turned off down another street, Winry saw her chance.

A van – obviously military – had been parked on the corner, and Winry made that her target. She opened the gate between the hedgerows as quietly as she could, grateful that the hinges didn't squeak and that the house's occupants were sleeping. Pretty at her side, she made a wild dash for the next house over, dropping to her knees against it and peering around the corner.

The soldiers were moving along the street, their backs to the van, and Winry decided to take her chance. Moving low to the ground, she scurried across the street and behind the vehicle, one hand on Pretty's neck to ensure the chimera was beside her at all times, and hoping the soft clicking of her claws wasn't nearly as loud as it sounded.

"Stay," she whispered, hoping Pretty would obey while she slowly sidled around to the front of the van and carefully, quietly, popped the hood.

Knowing that she couldn't count on Pride to knock them out if they spotted her this time around made the whole thing much more tense. She didn't even dare to glance at the soldiers, just in case they became aware of eyes on them and decided to turn around.

"Stop! Hands in the air!"

Winry froze, holding out the tremulous hope that the shout hadn't been meant for her, but a peek in the direction of the soldiers confirmed they were approaching at a fast clip, guns drawn.

Winry did the only thing she could – she ran for it. Bolting down the street like an escaped racehorse, she made a turn completely at random, hoping only to get out of their line of fire...

She ended up smashing directly into the chest of two other soldiers who had been running in the other direction, apparently attracted by their friends' shouts. Military reflexes meant she barely had time to recover from the winding she'd been given before she was grabbed by the back of her neck like an errant kitten and whirled around, her arms yanked behind her back. She's couldn't hold in a scream as her shoulders were brutally wrenched.

Pretty lunged for the man that had grabbed Winry, actually leaping into the air and colliding with his shoulder. Winry was dragged down with them, but fortunately the soldier let go of her almost immediately, throwing his arms over his face and neck in an effort to shield them from the chimera's teeth. Unlike her previous attack, Pretty wasn't simply biting down and holding on, but was darting her head back and forth like a snake, slashing with her teeth and then drawing back again, obviously seeking the man's throat.

Winry rolled to her feet, intending to pull Pretty off the man and make another attempt at running for it, when she noticed the second soldier pull out her gun and aim it at the two combatants.

"No!" the blonde yelled, charging forwards.

But she was too late. Three gunshots in rapid succession echoed through the alley, punctuated by a high, gurgling yelp from Pretty as the chimera collapsed in a heap.

Winry flung herself at the woman with a wild scream of rage, heedless of the gun in the soldier's hand, and while her weight wasn't enough to bring the woman to the ground, the blonde did succeed in barrelling her into the wall. The back of the woman's head struck the bricks sharply, and her eyes slid out of focus.

Trying to take advantage of her stunned opponent, Winry grabbed for the gun, but was distracted by the sound of shouts at the mouth of the street.

The soldiers who'd spotted her initially had appeared, and the man Pretty had attacked – still bleeding from several large rents in his forearms – ran toward them as one of them raised a gun.

"_No – it's her! Don't shoot!_"

The soldier shoved the gun aside with his hand, obviously trying to make sure it didn't hit Winry. The gun smashed into the brick wall, and Winry felt something white-hot slice against the side of her head.

The impact against her temple stunned her, and she found herself falling even as the roar of the gunshot finally reached her ears. She hit the ground on her side, her already throbbing shoulder bruising further and her bleeding temple cracking against the pavement.

She lay there, dazed and reeling, feeling blood pool beneath her cheek. Her hair was in her eyes, and dimly she thought she should do something about that. She also had the idea that she should probably get up, but her thoughts were scattered and she couldn't remember why.

Then she heard a scream.

-xxx-

Ed had no idea what was going on, but when he heard gunshots and someone screaming, he knew he had to intervene.

He didn't know who was following him as he left the barn and ran as fast as he could towards the sounds of a struggle, only that he definitely had back-up – which he was grateful for, as he didn't really know how many soldiers there were or what they were armed with. He only knew that they were clearly hunting someone down, and at this point an enemy of the military was usually a friend of his.

Ed rounded the corner so fast his boots skidded along the pavement, only to see something that should have been impossible.

Winry. Winry was standing in front of him, trying to pull the gun from the lax grip of a woman dressed in military uniform.

He dimly noted another soldier slowly climbing to his feet, bleeding from his arms, and a weird-looking animal crumpled on the ground, but all his attention went to the blonde in front of him.

He opened his mouth to shout her name, but as he did two soldiers came in at the other end, people shouted, a gunshot split the air...

And Winry fell, tumbling to the street like a cast-off doll, blood pooling beneath her head.

A wild, howling scream filled the alley, and it took Ed a moment to realise it was coming from his own throat. He was distantly aware of the soldiers turning to face him, but in that moment he couldn't care, didn't care about anything other than the body lying on the ground in front of him.

He didn't remember moving but he must have, because when he came to himself he was kneeling beside her, touching her shoulder, her cheek, her hair. Nothing made sense; the whole situation seemed impossible. Impossible that Winry should be here, impossible that she was dead...

Impossible that she should be stirring...

Hazed blue eyes blinked up at him as Winry's head turned, revealing that the blood came not from a bullet hole but from a gash across the side of her head. It was bleeding profusely (as Ed had learned headwounds did from personal experience) but the bullet must have only grazed her.

"Pride...?" she slurred.

Ed couldn't speak; he was just as frozen as he had been when he'd seen her fall.

She blinked, and a hint of wonder crept into her face. "Ed?"

He made a choked noise that might have been her name and pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest and burying his face in her hair, too relieved to even realise her blood was smearing across his face.

He'd been scared before. He'd been horrified before. But what he'd felt when he'd seen Winry fall, when he'd thought she was dead, was certainly one of the top two scenarios he never wanted to be in again. Right along with watching Al disappear into the Gate.

She was laughing a little hysterically, saying his name over and over as she clutched at him as though she couldn't quite believe it. Ed could sympathise; he was having a hard time believing it himself.

It occurred to him that there had been other people in the alley, and he should probably check to see why he hadn't been shot at yet.

He glanced up, to find Greed holding one soldier against a wall with one diamond-hard arm, but the rest...

The rest were pinned by what looked like living shadows.

"Oh, he gets a hug when I'm the guy who saved your life?"

-xxx-

_AN: A big thank you to juscallmefaye, who beta-d this chapter (and, of course, the whole story so far)!_


	8. Talents

**Chapter 8**

**Talents**

Ed stiffened at the strangely familiar voice, releasing Winry and whirling into a protective crouch between her and...

Himself.

At least, it looked like him. If he'd suddenly developed a fetish for red tattoos and had never had automail.

"Pride!" Winry called, scrambling to her feet. There was such relief in her voice that Ed was taken aback, and was too shocked to stop her as she moved past him to what he was pretty sure was a homunculus.

"No need to sound so worried," the...thing...with Ed's own face told her, looking surprised.

Winry's clear familiarity with the homunculus calmed Ed's initial rush of panic; the fact that she didn't fear him suggested that this Pride – like Greed – had turned on Father to follow his own path. Why that path had somehow included Winry, Ed couldn't begin to guess.

"You didn't come for ages – I though you were hurt," Winry explained, unable to stop her eyes skimming up and down Pride's body, looking pointlessly for injuries that would long since have been healed.

Pride frowned, both at the blood dripping from the side of her head and in surprise at the genuine worry on her face. He hadn't really paid much attention to her concern for him when they were travelling together; he'd assumed his resemblance to her friend meant that she simply projected any concern she would feel for Ed onto himself. But it seemed he'd been wrong – Ed had been right beside her, had been holding her...and she'd still been worried about him.

Somehow the idea of her seeing him as himself – as a separate entity from the human in whose image he'd been made – was pleasing and yet made him feel about ten times as guilty for what he was doing. He wondered briefly if he should try to go back to mentally referring to her as 'the human' but abandoned the idea; he was already too far gone.

He was becoming really, truly pathetic.

Not wanting to dwell on his disturbing _feelings_ and his failure thus far to control them, Pride changed the subject as swiftly as possible. "Where's your mongrel? Shouldn't she be growling at someone by now?"

Winry felt her eyes widen, as she remembered what had happened before the bullet had grazed her head.

"Pretty!" she cried out, turning away from Pride to go to the limp form that lay against one of the alley walls, almost hidden in the darkness.

At the sound of her name, the chimera tried to raise her head, a forlorn whine emerging between her wet, gurgling pants.

"Easy, girl," Winry murmured as she knelt down, in the tone she usually reserved for Den when they reattached the dog's automail. "Easy – don't move..."

She cradled Pretty's head with one hand, while the other moved down her body, trying to see with touch what her eyes couldn't glimpse in the dim glow of the streetlights. Even though she knew that the head wound and the fall had probably muddied her memory, Winry couldn't help but feel horribly guilty that she'd forgotten about Pretty for those few minutes. It wasn't as though the chimera could hold it against her, but the blonde still felt it was pretty poor thanks for getting shot in her defense.

Winry's searching fingers came across three bullet holes peppering Pretty's side, each discovery heralded by a yelp and a quiver from the weakened body beneath her. The mechanic tried not to think about the amount of blood her hands had contacted in the search.

Something moved in her peripheral vision and Winry jerked her head up, to find Ed crouching beside her, his eyes worried. His glance also flicked to Pride every few seconds, obviously still unsure about the homunculus' exact role in this, but Winry didn't feel like explaining things. Now now, at least.

"What's wrong?" the alchemist asked, his voice low and his eyes on the chimera.

"She attacked the guy who grabbed me," Winry said, trying not to sniffle as Pretty's breathing grew weaker beneath her hands, the chimera's head beginning to loll against her hand. "They shot her."

Ed didn't think he'd ever seen an uglier animal, but he couldn't help but feel a certain sense of obligation and kinship with anything that tried to protect Winry. He remembered using alchemy to perform a hasty patch-up job when he'd been impaled through the side, and wondered if he could do something similar here.

But back then, he'd known what he was dealing with – few people had ever done as much research on the exact components of the human body as he had – while here, he didn't have the faintest idea where to start. The chimera looked like a bizarre hybrid between the canine and the reptilian, but he couldn't be sure there wasn't anything else in there, and if he was even the slightest bit off he'd probably end up killing the creature.

The sound of a boot coming down on the cobblestones just behind him made Ed turn, tense and coiled at the possibility that it might be another soldier, but it was only Hohenheim.

Ed took a moment to reflect on how strange his life had become, that his first thought upon seeing his father was not the usual rush of resentment but simply 'it's _only_ him'.

Winry glanced up at the new arrival to the scene, her eyes looking suspiciously damp (if she started crying Ed would _not_ be responsible for his actions), and a pleading sort of expression on her face.

Admittedly, Hohenheim's first instinct was not to get involved. He was more concerned with the homunculus who looked exactly like his elder son, but seeing as Ed had yet to confront what he suspected was Pride (the use of shadows was very telling), it seemed he was presently a tentative ally, not an outright enemy. But Ed was clearly concerned, kneeling next to his mechanic as the woman huddled protectively over what looked like a dog...until Hohenheim moved closer and realised it was actually a chimera.

A chimera that was clearly dying. Winry looked up at him, and at the grief and the pleading expression on her face his next thought was to bend down and help, to lay his hands on the animal and _know_ it, mend it, heal it...

But at the same time...surely he owed the souls held within him more than to be expended to prolong an animal's life? Thus far, all the alchemy that utilised the Philosopher's Stone – that utilised _himself_ – had been to aid his endeavour to stop Father, or to save a human life. Trying to save a mutated chimera that Father himself had created was nothing but a foolish impulse.

Yet at the same time, he couldn't help but feel that it _was_ important. That the fact he felt the impulse at all showed he wasn't truly a monster – or not yet, anyway – that grief and sorrow could still move him, still make him want to put it right...

Besides, it looked as though if he didn't do something, Ed would.

Hohenheim bent, automatically sifting through the souls contained within him until he found one willing to be used in this – a young girl whose dog had died barely a week before she was consumed, and remembered the grief she'd felt for her pet. He touched the chimera's heaving, blood-soaked side, concentrated...

And the wounds closed in a rush of light.

Winry blinked spots from her eyes to find Pretty licking at the blood staining her velvet-like fur, whining as though puzzled as to where her injuries had gone.

Hohenheim had healed Pretty. The mechanic turned to him, her mouth opening as she struggled to express her gratitude – somehow 'thank you' didn't seem to cut it – but Hohenheim spoke before she could.

"I think we had best get off the streets and discuss things in a more private location," he suggested, as calmly as if he were inviting them to tea.

Winry couldn't have agreed more.

-xxx-

Pretty did not understand what had happened. Pack-Leader had been under attack, she had protected Pack-Leader, and then there had been loud noises that hurt her ears and tore her body. She had tried to rise, feeling weak and hurt but knowing that Pack-Leader still needed her, but then Pack-Leader was there, and others were there, and her body felt strange but then nothing hurt and she could get up again.

Pretty did not know what had happened, but she did know she didn't like most of the people Pack-Leader was now with. Two of them had strange scents, human and animal mingling in a way that made Pretty instinctively wary, unwilling to trust them with Pack-Leader.

She liked the one that smelled of chemicals and baked beans, though. He was loud, but he was protective of Pack-Leader in the way a true pack member ought to be. When he moved closer, dabbing at the blood that trickled from Pack-Leader's head, Pretty made no objection.

But she did not like the tall one, the one who smelled of death and blood – the one who smelled exactly like the Bad One. When he approached Pack-Leader, hands outstretched, Pretty growled threateningly, not quite willing to trust this creature who smelled too much like the Bad One.

"Ugly over there doesn't like you either, huh?" Pride smirked.

"Animals have never been particularly fond of me," Hohenheim acknowledged, stepping away from Winry and her snarling guardian.

"Pretty, down!" Winry ordered sharply.

The chimera sank grudgingly to the floor, still eyeing them warily. Ed – circling the chair Winry was sitting on to hand her another scrap of cloth – accidentally stepped on Pretty's long, reptilian tail, resulting in a loud yelp.

"Ed, watch where you step!" Winry scolded.

Ed scowled as the blonde woman cooed reassuringly to the chimera, completely ignoring the fact that the cloth she was holding against the gash on her temple was becoming soaked with blood. With a snarl of barely-repressed fury, he ripped the bloody fabric away and replaced it with the cloth he had in his hand – if she wasn't going to take care of herself, _someone_ had to!

Winry looked back up at him, about to yell at him again...until she noticed the tightness around his eyes, and how deep his frown was.

She supposed seeing her get shot had really frightened Ed.

"Don't worry, it's just a scratch," she soothed. She reached up for the cloth he was holding, wrapping her fingers over his. "Head wounds bleed a lot, you know that – you've had your fair share, after all."

"You were shot at!" Ed hissed. "Close enough for the damn bullet to graze your skull – excuse me if I'm taking that kinda seriously!"

Winry wasn't upset by his obvious fury – Ed always took a while to calm down when he was in one of his moods. And he'd always been protective of her, even when they were kids.

"Relax, little man," came Pride's drawl from the corner. "If falling through a ceiling hardly fazed her, I don't think that teensy little cut will kill her."

Ed, predictably, fixated on one word. "_Little!?_"

"Pride, you do realise that you and Ed are exactly the same height, don't you?" Winry pointed out.

Pride sneered, and Ed told himself that he was going to take the high road, he was _not_ going to punch him, he would be the bigger man...

"Whatever you say, honey," Pride almost purred, grinning rakishly at Winry.

Ed had started forward, enraged all over again, when a can opener whizzed by his head and ricocheted off Pride's chest.

"Don't call me honey!" Winry snarled, in the tone of voice which always made Ed want to scurry away and hide.

"Okay, okay, don't get so worked up," Pride muttered, rubbing his chest where the can opener had hit him. "Damn, you've got a good arm..."

Ed couldn't help staring, because no matter how he looked, he really couldn't get used to it. The weird tattoos across the rest of the body – and whatever the hell it was that the homunculus was wearing – helped to distinguish them, but Pride's face was like looking into a mirror. Except it wasn't, because a mirror reversed people's features, and that wasn't what was happening here; Ed was seeing his face as other people saw it, and there was something about that concept that just unsettled him on an instinctual level. The voice was slightly off as well, because when he heard his voice it was transmitted through his body, and Pride's was not.

All in all, it was quite unsettling.

"Not to interrupt this charming repartee," Greed drawled. "But what now?"

"What do you mean, 'what now'?" Pride snapped, scowling at the scene in front of him – Winry wincing but permitting Ed to blot at the blood dripping from her temple.

He was not jealous. Not of some stupid human who didn't even have the sense to keep all his limbs.

"Well, our little merry band now seems to have two additional members," Greed pointed out, still using that relaxed, sarcastic tone that made Pride want to slice him up with his shadows. "One who can probably pass for a famous alchemist in a pinch and who manipulates shadows, and another whose talents seem limited to restoring automail..."

"She can hot-wire cars," Pride responded, feeling inexplicably nettled at Greed's dismissal of Winry.

"And I can pick locks and I know something about bombs, gunpowder and things like that," the girl in question chimed in.

"Bombs?" Ed echoed.

"She knows explosives..." Pride muttered, exasperation in every syllable. "Of course she knows explosives...she knows how to gentle chimeras and steal cars and run into gunfights, so why on earth would she neglect her education in a little bomb-making. You know, the minute you threatened to rip out my eyes I should have known you'd be far too much trouble."

"You threatened to rip his eyes out?" Greed repeated, eyeing Winry with what seemed a touch more respect.

But Winry was too busy thinking on her past repertoire to pay him any attention. "I also once built a miniature cannon with the stuff we had in the kitchen."

Hohenheim raised his eyebrows. "May I ask the obvious – why?"

"I was bored. And I was only ten, so Granny wouldn't let me work on actual automail yet."

"Of course," Pride snapped. "You were bored, so you built yourself a miniature arsenal. Because you couldn't just go play with dolls or something."

Winry gave Pride a look that strongly suggested she was questioning his intelligence. Ed was snickering into his hands, remembering the one time Rosie from the dairy had tried to play dolls with Winry – the poor girl had never tried again.

And he thought he remembered her making the cannon, too. Wasn't that when she came up to him and Al and asked if they could use alchemy to turn the silverware into cannonballs?

But there was one point he was still unclear on. "Bombs?"

Winry graced him with a tolerant look. "I make automail; high-performance machinery working in a very small space, often under building heat and pressure. Granny taught me how to make a bomb so I'd recognise one when I saw it, and could avoid making a customer's automail into one."

"Oh." Ed pondered that for a moment. "You know...it's almost like Granny Pinako was training you for something like this."

"Knowing Granny, I wouldn't rule it out."

"I like her," Greed sniggered. "She comes with us."

"She does not!" Ed snapped. "She goes back to Risembool-"

"Where it's safe?" Pride sneered. "I think this little adventure proved conclusively that it's not safe for her anywhere."

Though Ed did not argue the point, Hohenheim did not fail to notice his son was practically fuming, desperately searching his brain for an argument that would result in Winry remaining out of harm's way.

Hohenheim could see why the creature that called itself Father had chosen her as his hostage.

"No more arguments?" Greed asked. "Good – I wouldn't have listened anyway. A girl who can fix automail, pick locks, make bombs and tame chimeras will definitely be useful."

Winry tried not to smile, sensing how close Ed was to exploding in frustration. But she was happier than she'd been since this whole mess started; going with him might be dangerous, but there was nowhere else she'd rather be.

"Well, let's call in Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum from standing guard, and tell them the happy news," Pride sneered.

Winry sighed, and wondered if it would be worth the effort to try to sic Pretty on the homunculus. "Pride, be nice."

"Why?"

"Because people will shout at you, and I already have a headache."

Pride scowled, but subsided with little more than muttered grumbling, stalking out in what was patently a sulk. Winry couldn't help a smile of amusement, even if it swiftly degenerated into a wince when Ed dabbed again at the gash on her head.

Hohenheim watched them for a few moments, before following the homunculus.

He found Pride toying petulantly with a lantern, wrapping it in his shadows until the light was extinguished...but of course, when the light was extinguished the shadows ceased to exist, and so sprang almost immediately back into being and he began all over again.

Pride didn't turn to acknowledge him, but simply glared all the harder at the lantern. "Say one word and I swear I'll tear you into little pieces!"

Hohenheim wondered idly if he could regenerate from that, then decided that train of thought was far too morbid. So he only shook his head, knowing his pity was unwanted, but unable to help feeling sorry for the homunculus who had chanced to fall in love with a human.

-xxx-

_AN: Thanks to justcallmefaye, for being so patient with me._


End file.
